Imperial Tobacco says rights issue 97.2% subscribed

LONDON (Reuters) - Imperial Tobacco Group, the world's No. 4 cigarette group, said on Thursday all but 2.8 percent of its shareholders subscribed for its 4.9 billion pound rights issue.

Imperial Tobacco said in a statement the rights issue's underwriters would place the remaining 9.5 million new shares.

On May 20, Imperial Tobacco launched a deeply discounted rights issue to pay for its acquisition of Franco-Spanish rival Altadis in January.

The maker of Lambert & Butler cigarettes set its cash call close to the top of analysts' expectations and just below its own upper limit of 5 billion pounds.

Analysts said the hefty size of the issue reflected the strength of the euro against the pound and also Imperial's decision to buy in Altadis's minority stake in Logista rather than sell the logistics business.

The cash call was fully underwritten by Hoare Govett, Morgan Stanley, Citi and Lehman Brothers and offered one new share for every two existing at 1,475 pence each. Imperial shares closed at 2,203p on Wednesday.

It was Britain's third biggest rights issue after Royal Bank of Scotland's 12 billion pound issue announced in April and BT's 5.9 billion pound cash call launched in 2001.

Other recent rights issues, including the Royal Bank of Scotland's and Carlsberg's $6.3 billion cash calls, were launched at sharply discounted prices to guarantee success in tough market conditions.

Imperial's acquisition of Altadis gave it brands like Gauloises and Fortuna to add to its own West and Davidoff.

(Reporting by Dan Lalor; Editing by David Holmes)