Cockatoo announced today that it had completed the bookbuild of new shares equivalent in number to entitlements not taken up in the retail component of the entitlement offer.

This bookbuild comprised an offer of approximately 33.4 million new shares and cleared at 51 cents per share, representing a 27.5% premium to the underwritten issue price for the entitlement offer.

Cash proceeds of 11c per entitlement will be returned to renouncing and ineligible retail shareholders, the company said.

Shares issued under the retail component of the entitlement offer and the bookbuild will settle on October 20, 2010.

Allotment will occur on October 21, 2010, and trading on the Australian Securities Exchange will commence on October 22, 2010.

The institutional component of the entitlement offer and the placement were successfully completed on September 17, 2010, raising $112.7 million.

The consortium, consisting of Cockatoo, Korea Electric Power Corporation and steelmaker Posco, struck conditional agreements with AAMC for the coal leases in July for $580 million.

Cockatoo recently entered into an exclusivity arrangement to give Japanese trading house Mitsui the first chance to purchase additional stakes in the Collingwood and Ownaview open cut thermal coal projects in Queensland’s Surat Basin, two of the assets from the AAMC deal.

Mitsui already owns a 49% stake in both projects, and the exclusivity period runs up to March 11, 2011.

Cockatoo’s shares were 1c lower at 52.5c in morning trade.