Brazil's Casas Bahia raises $126.5 million in share offering

SAO PAULO (Reuters) - Brazilian retailer Casas Bahia raised 622 million reais ($126.53 million) in a share offering, the company said on Thursday.

Casas Bahia, formerly known as Via, priced its offering at 0.80 reais per share, a discount of nearly 28% from its Wednesday closing price.

The figure is also way below the 981 million reais the company said it expected to raise when the offer was announced.

However, Casa Bahia also approved the issue of four stock warrants as a bonus for every five shares acquired in the offer, which could lift the amount raised to 1.12 billion reais ($227.84 million), if all warrants are issued and exercised.

Half of the amount already raised will be allocated to the company's share capital account, while the remainder will be used as a capital reserve, it said.

The newly issued shares will start trading on the Brazilian stock exchange on Sept. 18.

($1 = 4.9158 reais)

(Reporting by Peter Frontini and Carolina Pulice; Editing by Steven Grattan)