pb production going well, page-16

Not sure that I would categorize the underwriter's actions as panicking. What they are doing seems very normal.

Stockbrokers like this aim to make money primarily on transaction fees, rather than buying and holding stock. The risk they take in trying to make those fees is that they have to underwrite the issuance. If the issuance is not fully subscribed, then they will then need to buy stock (in this case options). The intention is to always mitigate this risk, whether they are underwriting HMC or even BHP. They do not really want to have to come up with the cash to buy the shares, because they then need to carry the shares. Holding the shares reducing their ability to have the available balance sheet cash to do more deals, and then to make more commissions. So they encourage people to take up the offer in many ways, because that are not really investors in the companies they underwrite - this is not their primary business.

So, in a global market like this, where credit is extremely tight, their actions to encourage the shareholder take up would be quite normal. In fact they would be silly not to do so.