The troubled German computer chip maker Infineon is to increase its capital with the backing of the US investment fund Apollo.
Infineon said it would issue new shares worth a total of €725m, and that current shareholders would be given a place at the head of the queue to buy them. The plan calls for the issue of 337 million new shares at €2.15 per share.
Apollo has pledged to buy shares not taken by the current shareholders up to a total of 326 million, which would represent a stake of 30% minus one share in the German company.
The move confirmed a press report earlier in the Financial Times Deutschland (FTD). The operation would be one of the biggest in a German company in several months.
Infineon has suffered from a collapse of the automobile electronics component sector and is already in the process of restructuring its activities. In the first half of its 2008/2009 financial year, it posted a net loss of €662m.
