Posted on
December 18, 2012 10:13:53 PM [ Businessworld Online ]
GOTIANUN-LED
Filinvest Development Corp. has raised its public ownership to a level just
above the 10% minimum required by the Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE), the
company said in a disclosure yesterday.
The listed holding firm said its public
ownership level rose to 10.16% from a previous 3.35% after its unlisted
majority shareholder, ALG Holdings Corp., sold P3.18 billion worth of its
shares.
“ALG Holdings
disclosed today (Dec. 18) that it sold a total of 636 million Filinvest
Development shares at a price of P5 per share to various third-party investors
via cross-sale transactions,” the disclosure read.
Shares sold
were equivalent to 6.66% of the listed firm’s total outstanding stock.
As of
end-September, ALG Holdings was Filinvest Development’s single largest
shareholder with 8.85 billion shares equivalent to a 94.97% stake, the listed
firm’s end-September Top 100 stockholders report showed.
NO EXTENSION
Last Monday,
Filinvest Development Corp. disclosed with four other firms -- PNOC Exploration
Corp.; San Miguel Brewery, Inc.; San Miguel Properties, Inc.; and Maybank ATR
KimEng Financial Corp. -- that the Securities and Exchange Commission had
rejected all appeals endorsed to it by the PSE for more time to comply with the
minimum public float rule.
All listed
firms have until Dec. 31 to raise their public ownership levels to at least
10%.
Those that
fail to do so face immediate share trading suspension on Jan. 1 that will last
for up to six months.
Float-deficient
companies that still fail to comply by the end of June next year will be
delisted the following day.
Moreover,
float-deficient firms face higher taxes for sale of shares over the counter --
or outside the PSE trading system -- starting Jan. 1, the Bureau of Internal
Revenue (BIR) has has said. In Revenue Regulations No. 16-2012, dated Nov. 7,
BIR said “sales, barters, exchanges or other dispositions” of such shares will
be subject to capital gains tax of 5% or 10% and a documentary stamp tax, in
lieu of the stock transaction tax amounting to one-half of 1% of gross selling
price.
As of
yesterday, 20 firms had yet to comply with this requirement, down from a list
of 25 which the bourse released last Dec. 7.
AHEAD OF
DEADLINE
This latest
tally already excludes Filinvest Development; Globalport 900, Inc.; and LT
Group, Inc. which have disclosed their compliance with the rule, as well as
Metro Pacific Tollways Corp. and First Metro Investments Corp. which are both
delisting on Friday.
Eton
Properties Philippines, Inc., which recently completed the tender offer for its
minority stockholders’ shares, aims to delist on Jan. 3, 2013, but is still
seeking regulatory approval to do so.
Integrated
Micro-Electronics, Inc. (IMI) said in a disclosure yesterday that its majority
stockholder, AYC Holdings Ltd., will sell by the end of the year a number of
its shares to a public investor in order to comply.
As of Dec. 7,
Eton had a public float level of 2.54%, while IMI had 8.53%.
Filinvest
Development Corp., incorporated in 1973, is into mall and theater operations,
banking and financial services, sugar farming and milling, and, recently, power
generation.
The company
grew its net income by 8.31% to P3.39 billion as of September from P3.13
billion in the same nine months last year on higher revenues across all
business units.
In the same
comparative periods, revenues -- consisting mostly of income from real estate
operations -- rose by 26.02% to P20.49 billion from P16.26 billion, while costs
and operating expenses increased by 45.98% to P9.08 billion from P6.22 billion.
Filinvest
Development shares lost 11 centavos to P4.68 apiece yesterday from P4.79 last
Monday. -- Franz Jonathan G. de la Fuente
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