India's Reliance Industries on Monday said it raised nearly $574 million (R4.2 billion) through a share sale, as it prepares a possible attempt to buy troubled Dutch firm LyondellBasell Industries.
Reliance, the country's largest private sector firm, said in a statement it had sold 26 million shares at an average price of 1 035 rupees each, raising nearly 27 billion rupees.
The company has shown interest in buying the bankrupt Rotterdam-based petrochemicals giant LyondellBasell, which analysts say could be worth up to $12 billion.
The share sale was the second by Reliance in nearly four months, as the company moves to build a war chest of cash to finance global acquisitions.
"The money raised is likely for acquisition purposes, and could include financing RIL's bid for LyondellBasell," Deepak Pareek, an analyst at Mumbai-based brokerage Angel Broking, told Dow Jones Newswires.
The Petroleum Trust, part of the Reliance group, had raised $664 million in September through selling shares.
LyondellBasell late last year filed a plan to reorganise operations with the United States' Bankruptcy Court.
On Monday, Reliance shares closed down 14.05 rupees or 1.29 percent to 1 075.35, slipping from a daily high of 1 094 on profit-taking. - AFP