Xstrata "to sell shares for £2.10" - how do I buy?

[CzechItOut]

BBC News said:

The mining group Xstrata plans to raise £4.1bn ($5.9bn) in a discounted sale of new shares to cut its level of debt.

The company said it will offer investors 1.96bn new shares at £2.10 a share. The shares closed at £6.23 in London on Wednesday.

How would a layman, like myself, go about buying these shares for £2.10? Are they only available to institutions or current share holders? The Current share price is still over £5.00.

[dazren]

Only available to current shareholders.

[Horse_Apple]

It's an issue to existing stock holders on a pro rata basis.

You can't buy at 2.10 and sell and 5 for a nice profit

[JustinP1]

Horse_Apple said:

It's an issue to existing stock holders on a pro rata basis.

You can't buy at 2.10 and sell and 5 for a nice profit

As with most of the stock market, it is not quite as easy of buying a ton of lead and seeing turn into gold overnight.

(Or preferably even before you have bought it...!)

[Horse_Apple]

JustinP1 said:

Horse_Apple said:

It's an issue to existing stock holders on a pro rata basis.

You can't buy at 2.10 and sell and 5 for a nice profit

As with most of the stock market, it is not quite as easy of buying a ton of lead and seeing turn into gold overnight.

(Or preferably even before you have bought it...!)

[nsa]

These new shares will dilute the number of current shares in issue and when they start trading all shares will be at the combined average price. Existing shareholders might get a small discount, but whatever shares are >£5.00 now will be at say £2.50 when the new shares start trading. I haven't looked at the numbers but you can work out a rough average fairly easily.