Esprit Holdings Ltd, a clothing retailer and wholesale distributor, said it had received applications for 4.98 billion right shares, representing 7.7 times of the rights shares available for subscription.

Major shareholder Lone Pine Capital's stake in the company will be reduced to 10.88 percent?from 14.15 percent?after the completion of the rights issue while founder Michael Ying's stake will increase to 10.34 percent?from 8.99 percent?after issue, the company said in a statement to the Hong Kong stock exchange.

Esprit earlier announced a plan to raise HK$5.2 billion ($671 million) in a rights offer.