Friday saw one of the world's biggest rights issues being wrapped up by the global miner Rio Tinto. The company specified that its Australian shareholders had taken up 94.76 percent of the entitlements to the new shares.

UK shareholders, on Thursday took up 96.97 percent of the deeply discounted, fully underwritten $15.2 billion rights offer.

This put the indebted Anglo-Australian group on a firmer financial footing. "The issue also marks a bonanza for the banks that underwrote it: Credit Suisse, J. P. Morgan Cazenove, Macquarie, Deutsche Bank, Morgan Stanley, RBS and Societe Generale," said a source.

He added: "The underwriters of the two legs of the rights issue were paid a 2.75 percent fee, or around $420 million in total, and are now also making a substantial extra profit by selling the small portion of shares that were not taken up by existing investors." Thursday witnessed banks selling the "rump" in U. K. at 21 pounds, a 50 percent profit on the London rights-issue price.

Banks in Australia would wait for Friday, when they will offload nearly .87 million shares, worth about A$407 million ($324 million) at Thursday's closing Australian share price of A$51.75.

The source said: "Rio Tinto's Australian shares have been halted from trade pending the sale of the rump Australian stock."