COPENHAGEN/LONDON, Sept. 3 (Reuters) – Danish shipping and oil conglomerate A.P. Moller-Maersk raised about $1.58 billion in a stock placement on Wednesday to build a war chest for acquisitions.

The group sold 250,340 B shares held in treasury, or about 5.7 percent of its total share capital, at 33,000 crowns per share, Maersk said.

The sale was at a discount of 10.6 percent to Tuesday's closing price of 36,900 crowns.

Maersk shares closed down 8.1 percent at 33,900 crowns on the Copenhagen stock exchange before the pricing was announced.

The bourse's blue-chip index ended down 3.7 percent.

''The company will receive gross proceeds of approximately 8.26 billion Danish crowns,'' ($1.58 billion) Maersk said in a statement.

Chief Executive Nils Smedegaard Andersen said the group was eyeing options in a number of sectors.

Maersk owns the world's biggest container shipping company, Maersk Line, produces North Sea oil and gas, operates a fleet of drilling rigs and runs port terminals.

''What we want to invest in will be good opportunities in oil, either by buying into production partnerships or buying a field,'' Andersen told Reuters. ''It could also be new container terminals, (or) development of existing terminals, and it can be within shipping ... (if something) very attractive comes up.''

Supply vessels were another possibility, Andersen said.

In separate comments, Maersk Line's Asia-Pacific CEO Jesper Praestensgaard told Reuters in an interview in Singapore the shipping cycle has bottomed out and an upturn for the container industry could be around the corner. .

UBS said in a note to clients that container shipping rates were probably still below break-even, despite recent increases.

Group CEO Andersen declined to comment on whether Maersk was interested in buying troubled German container shipping rival Hapag-Lloyd from TUI AG .

''I have no comment on that. We look at what comes to the market,'' he said. ''The most likely thing is that we would buy operations, if there are some available at a good price, rather than buying a whole company.''

Handelsbanken analyst Dan Togo Jensen said: ''It is just a matter of them improving liquidity and being able to pick up distressed assets if they come up for sale.

Jensen doubted that an acquisition of Hapag-Lloyd was on the agenda and added Maersk would stand to gain more from some other industry player consolidating Hapag-Lloyd.

LD Invest Markets chief analyst Brian Borsting also said Maersk was likely to go for a number of smaller purchases.

''We believe there will not be big acquisitions of rivals in the year to come,'' he said.