Rolls-Royce's rights issue is emergency button it should have pressed sooner | Nil Pratley

Assuming the financial package is completed, collapse or a full-blown state bailout should be off the table for a while

The process was slow and spluttering, but Rolls-Royce got there in the end: there will be a fully underwritten rights issue to raise 2bn, plus a new 3bn debt package. If the civil aviation market comes out of hibernation by 2022, it should be enough.

The UK's premier engineering company didn't even have to trot off to Singapore for sovereign wealth money. It appears that current shareholders said that, if new shares are to be printed at desperation prices, they'll take them.