Troubled Chilean ocean carrier CSAV announced its shareholders raised $659 million in the first stage of a planned $1.2 billion capital increase.

    Shareholders bought 3.222 billion new shares at $0.2045 each, the company said. CSAV will now attempt to sell the remaining 2.65 billion shares to third-party investors and if it falls short it will return to the shareholders who participated in the first round of the fundraising.

    Chile’s Luksic family, the biggest CSAV shareholder, has pledged to subscribe for the shares necessary to raise $1 billion.

    The capital increase is part of CSAV’s restructuring program launched in May 2011 aimed at improving the carrier’s competitive and financial position. The program includes revamping the company’s liner service portfolio, intensifying joint operations with leading ocean carriers and spinning off its harbor tug unit SAAM as a separate company.

    CSAV said almost 80 percent of its container cargoes are shipped through joint operations compared with little more than 30 percent at the beginning of 2011. The carrier lost $860 million in the first nine months of 2011.

(Source:JOC)