JSM Financial: Prudential Plc unveils $21 billion cash call to rescue its AIA takeover deal.

May 18, 2010 - PRLog -- British insurance giant Prudential Plc has recently unveiled a $21 billion cash call as it increases its efforts to save its takeover of AIG’s Asian insurance unit, and JSM Financial has been informed, has launched a charm offensive to win over some of its still skeptical shareholders.

After being directed by the British Financial Services Authority to bolster its $35.5 billion offer for AIA, an embarrassing and unprecedented move, forcing the firm to boost its capital, Prudential CEO Tidjane Thiam has revealed his agreement with the watchdog.

Reports indicate that many shareholders remained wary of this heavily discounted share sale, the largest ever sale aimed at financing a takeover. The Pru CEO, in the job for less than a year, said that he was confident of his plans to make the company the largest foreign-owned insurer in the bludgeoning Asian insurance sphere, arguing that this would not have been possible through conventional organic growth.

JSM Financial believes he said that he felt confident that investors would support his new plan. “We always knew this would be a long, complex and challenging process …, what we are attempting has never been attempted before."

Prudential brushed aside rumors that the CEO would be forced to step down if its shareholders did not back the deal on June 7, where 75 % of voting stock is required to be in favor of the deal.

"We see it as a vote of confidence in the deal, not in management," JSM Financial believes the company Chairman Harvey McGrath recently said.

Prudential is set to sell its shares at a 39% discount to the theoretical ex-rights price (TERP).

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