Published : Thursday, November 03, 2011 00:00 [ manilatimes.net ]
Written by : Krista Angela M. Montealegre
The private holding firm of the Gotianun family completed the consolidation of its shares in listed Filinvest Development Corp. in preparation for the conglomerate’s planned secondary share sale.
In a disclosure to the Philippine Stock Exchange, FDC said majority shareholder ALG Holdings Corp. bought another 23.82 million FDC shares from a related entity through a cross-sale transaction.
Based on a market price of P3.85 per share, the transaction was worth P91.70 million. At end-September, ALG Holdings owned 95.25 percent of FDC.
Adrian Bancoro, FDC chief information officer, said this may be the last share purchase of ALG Holdings, which has been consolidating its stake in FDC in preparation for its secondary offering.
“Once the equity follow-on offering takes off, only one shareholder will sell shares and that is ALG Holdings,” Bancoro said.
FDC had put off a secondary share sale originally scheduled for January because of volatile market conditions. It was supposed to raise the company’s public float to 30 percent.
ALG Holdings was supposed to sell 2.5 billion shares and then subscribe to the new shares issued by FDC.
Proceeds from the offering were supposed to finance the development of its real estate and hospitality businesses, to increase its banking unit’s capitalization, to fund its infrastructure and utilities businesses, and to pay down debt.
The company said it would still pursue its follow-on offering in tranches so it could comply with the 10-percent minimum public ownership requirement of the local bourse.
FDC is engaged in the businesses of real estate, financial services, hospitality services, sugar farming and milling, and power generation.
The conglomerate’s profit in the first half rose 26 percent to P2.39 billion on robust real estate revenues.
Its shares lost P0.08 to close at P3.80 each on Wednesday.
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