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INITIAL
ownership.
Renato Llamas Reyes, of 815 Torres Street, Mandaluyong
City, bought 5.758 million common shares, or 15.4
percent, in Lodestar Investment Holdings Corp. (LIHC).
The filing posted July 14 on the web site of the
Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE) gave July 1 as the “date
of event requiring statement” but did not provide the
price and the date of acquisition. Lodestar hit a 30-day
high of P12.50 on June 11 and dropped to a 30-day low of
P7.80 on June 3. At these prices, Reyes’s LIHC shares
had market value of P71.975 million and P44.912 million.
No
operation.
LIHC has
been showing a remarkable market performance despite its
deficit of P42.628 million, as shown in its quarterly
report ended March 31, 2008. Since it had no operations,
it has been reporting losses—P418, 209 in the first
three months of 2008 and P1.931 million in fiscal year
2007. Reyes must have seen something good in Lodestar
behind these bad numbers. The Anggalas, who now control
LIHC, bought at P2.50 per share the combined holdings of
Cyan Management Corp. and Carcorp Makati Inc. totaling
35.033 million shares, equivalent to 93.91 percent. They
also offered to buy the remaining shares held by the
public but the minority stockholders did not sell.
IPO
proceeds.
Reports on the utilization of proceeds from the sale of
shares by market newcomers are welcome news to
investors. The question is, are all these companies that
raised funds for their operations or pay their debts
complying with the rules? (Calling on PSE to review
compliance.) To regulators: Why not expand the rules to
make transparent the decision of the boards of listed
companies to borrow and the use of proceeds of such
borrowings as well?
Here are
the latest filers on use of IPO proceeds:
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More
beer.
San Miguel Brewery Inc., a subsidiary of San Miguel
Corp., said it used P197.70 million of P616 million in
proceeds from the sale of shares for capital
expenditures. In a filing, it also told regulators that
the primary offer expenses amounted to P20 million.
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More
soda.
Pepsi-Cola Products Phils. Inc. reported net proceeds of
P1.227 billion from its initial public offering. Of
this, it spent P800 million—broken down to P275 million
and P202 million to pay the loans for its Cebu and San
Fernando projects. It also paid its P323-million loan
used for working capital. The remaining P427 million is
deposited in two banks—P400 million with Bank of
Philippine Islands and P27 million with Citibank.
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projects.
Megaworld Corp. said it has spent P6.676 billion of the
P10-billion proceeds from the sale of additional shares
through stock rights offering. Of this, the company
spent P674.232 million for City Place Hotel, business
process outsourcing (BPO) buildings and retail
components in Binondo; P1 billion for the Eastwood BPO
office building; P2 billion for Forbes Town Center and
McKinley Hill; and P3.001 billion for landbank. The
filing shows Megaworld exceeded its allocation for
landbanking by P1.338 million, while it still has P3.26
billion left of the P4-billion earmarked for the Binondo
project.
§
Like
parent…Empire
East Land Holdings Inc. reported net proceeds of P2.620
billion from its stock rights offer. Of the amount, it
has disbursed P340.26 million of the P1-billion
allocation for the construction of Pioneer
Woodlands/Little Baguio Terraces; P263.052 million of
the P800 million allotted for debt repayment; and
P873.434 million of P900 million for landbanking. After
all these disbursements, Empire East said it had
unutilized balance of P1.434 billion, as of June 30,
2008. Incidentally, the list of stockholders showed
Megaworld owns 5.023 billion shares, or 47.284 percent,
of Empire East. (A separate filing listed Megaworld as
owner of 5.077 billion shares, or 48.376 percent, after
selling 1.205 billion shares at P0.45 on June 25.) |
