Rights Issue

A rights issue is an issue of rights to buy additional securities in a company made to the company's existing security holders. When the rights are for equity securities, such as shares, in a public company, it is a way to raise capital under a seasoned equity offering. Rights issues are sometimes carried out as a shelf offering. With the issued rights, existing security-holders have the privilege to buy a specified number of new securities from the firm at a specified price within a specified time. In a public company, a rights issue is a form of public offering (different from most other types of public offering, where shares are issued to the general public). Rights issues may be particularly useful for closed-end companies, which cannot retain earnings, because they distribute essentially all of their realized income and capital gains each year; therefore, they raise additional capital through rights offerings. As equity issues are generally preferable to debt issues from the company's viewpoint, companies usually opt for a rights issue when they have problems raising equity capital from the general public and choose to ask their existing shareholders to buy more shares.