Cathay Pacific’s HK$11.7 billion (US$1.5 billion) rights issue has been oversubscribed, wrapping up the only item of the three-part HK$39 billion recapitalisation package designed for rescuing the embattled airline that required minority shareholders’ funding. The company said in a Hong Kong stock exchange filing on Friday evening that the rights issue was 137 per cent oversubscribed, adding that it had received applications for 3.43 billion shares compared to the 2.5 billion shares on offer. The oversubscription was due to the fact that some shareholders had applied for more shares in excess of their own entitlements, totalling 989.3 million, or 39.5 per cent of the initial offer size, the airline said. Under the carrier’s seven-for-11 cash call, minority shareholders, who own about 15 per cent of Cathay Pacific’s share capital, were offered the right to subscribe to each new share at HK$4.68. The company’s three majority shareholders – Swire Pacific, Air China and Qatar Airways – together hold a combined 85 per cent stake in the airline and had all agreed to subscribe for their rights entitlements. Cathay Pacific’s share price has been sliding hard since the HK$39 billion rescue package was first announced on June 9. It hit HK$5.53 on Wednesday when the rights issue book was closed , or a mere 18 per cent discount to the rights price. That’s about half of the theoretical discount when the rescue plan was first sold to investors. Underwriters for the rights share offering include HSBC, BNP Paribas, Morgan Stanley and BOC International. The stock rose 0.6 per cent to HK$5.48 at the close of trading on Friday. Despite its share price declining to a multi-year low in recent weeks, some minority investors decided to take a last minute “vote of confidence” on Cathay Pacific and put in their application this week, according to a person familiar with the transaction. The beleaguered airline warned in July that it would register a historic HK$9.9 billion loss in the first half of 2020, as its business was battered by reduced travel because of the coronavirus pandemic. Its revenue evaporated amid global travel bans prompting it to turn to the government for a bailout. The Hong Kong government is handing it a lifeline by subscribing to HK$19.5 billion of preference shares and warrants, and offering a HK$7.8 billion bridge loan to the carrier. Cathay Pacific and its wholly owned Cathay Dragon carried a total of 27,106 passengers in June, a year-on-year decline of 99.1 per cent. “The one certainty facing the global aviation industry is that the landscape will be significantly changed when international air travel recovers,” Ronald Lam, Cathay Pacific’s group chief customer and commercial officer, said in July.