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FRANKFURT (Reuters)- UBS has wrapped up a 16 billion franc rights issue, the Swiss bank’s second effort to resuscitate finances that have been ravaged by the global markets crisis.

It is the latest in a line of major banks including Britain’s Royal Bank of Scotland and HBOS and France’s Credit Agricole to go cap in hand to shareholders. In total, European banks are raising more than $40 billion from shell-shocked investors.

UBS said on Friday 99.4 percent of the issue was taken up but one analyst pointed to what he said was UBS’s weak stock performance during the rights trading. "It has been weak ever since they announced the rights issue," said Peter Thorne, an analyst with Helvea.

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New York (HedgeCo.Net) – CSX and dissident shareholders sounded off yesterday, as they shared their cases to an advisory firm and outlined their differing plans for the railroad operator’s future.

With a proxy fight in the future, TCI and 3G Capital, the two activist hedge funds, will have to urge shareholders to elect their proposed board of directors. Meanwhile, Michael Ward, Chairman and CEO of CSX, has different plans.

He once again pushed for shareholders to reject the hedge funds suggestions, citing their CSX’s strong stock performance in the first quarter and warning that the hedge funds were ultimately interested in a possible leveraged buyout.

TCI head Chris Hohn responded by saying, “If we were just looking to make a quick buck, we would have left CSX a long time ago.”

He went on to say that he is seeking nothing more than operational improvements as well as improvements on the board by replacing those with little or no railroad experience.

This includes placing himself on that board, along with 3G Managing Director Alexandre Behring.

The board of CSX currently has 12 seats. The hedge funds are seeking 5 of those seats and jointly nominated a minority board slate back in December.

The other three nominees are Gilbert Lamphere, who runs a private investment firm but also was a director at Canadian National Railway Co., Timothy O’Toole, Managing Director of the London Underground and Gary Wilson, a former chairman at Northwest Airlines Corp.

The board of directors will be decided by shareholders at the company’s annual meeting on June 25 in New Orleans.

Julie Scuderi
Senior Editor for HedgeCo.Net
Email: julie@hedgeco.net

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Houston Business Journal – A noisy, contentious proxy battle ended quietly Wednesday when shareholders of Vaalco Energy Inc. voted in the company’s chosen slate of board directors.

Houston-based Vaalco (NYSE:EGY) had spent the past three months fending off an attack from a New York hedge fund that was formed in January and built up a substantial position of shares — 4.7 million — on the open market before disclosing its position in March.

Nanes Delorme Partners I LP had proposed its own slate of three directors for election at the meeting and demanded big changes at the exporation and production company, which has most of its holdings in West Africa.

Vaalco had filed a lawsuit against the hedge fund as part of its response to the coup attempt but has dropped the proceedings as part of an agreement cobbled together late in the evening of May 23 to end the dispute. Nanes Delormes in turn agreed to vote in favor of Vaalco’s director nominees.

Proxy advisory firm Glass Lewis & Co. weighed in a day earlier, recommending that shareholders withhold support for Vaalco board nominees W. Russell Scheirman, president and chief financial officer, and Arne Nielsen. The proxy firm said it agreed with many of the corporate governance and stock performance issues raised by Nanes Delormes.

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