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Tiu family’s remittance firm goes public
IPO
update.
iRemit Inc. is the latest family-owned corporation to go
public. It is controlled by the Tiu family, one of the
big stockholders of International Exchange Bank, which
was taken over by Union Bank of the
Philippines.
Of the 140.604 million shares that are being sold
through an initial public offering at P4.68 each,
107.417 million shares come from its unissued shares
while 33.187 million shares from the holdings of
existing corporate stockholders such as JTKC Equities
Inc., with 21,571,550 shares; Surewell Equities Inc.,
9,956,100 shares; and JPSA Global Services Inc.,
1,659,350 shares.
Of the
IPO’s gross proceeds of P658.02672 million, P155,315,160
will go to the three corporate stockholders due their
combined 33.187 million shares, which, they bought at
par value of P1 per share, or a total acquisition price
of P33.187 million. They more than recovered their
investments when iRemit, whose board they control,
distributed P43 million in stock dividends on July 20,
2007.
Dividend
policy.
Apparently, the P43-million bonanza was iRemit’s first
dividend payout. In the beginning of its operations it
did not make money and even reported a deficit of
P39,730,810 in 2004, which, however, it succeeded in
reducing to P17,290,603 in 2005. By 2006, it had
retained earnings of P24,418,276, which more than
doubled to P64,306,234 as of June 30, 2007. Aside from
profitability, the company’s IPO sweetener is its
dividend policy—it will declare as dividend up to 20
percent of consolidated net income in a year.
Increasing stake.
The NTT Group of Japan owns 34,685,840 common shares in
Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. (PLDT), up 37.277
percent from its ownership in September last year,
according to a filing posted on the web site of the
Philippine Stock Exchange. The block is equivalent to
18.3788 percent of PLDT’s 188,726,912 outstanding common
shares as of
October 10, 2007.
Of these holdings, NTT DoCoMo Inc. directly owns
22,052,353 common shares, or 11.685 percent and
indirectly owns 12,633,487 common shares, or 6.694
percent, which are held by NTT Communications Corp. NTT
DoCoMo and NTT Communications owned 12,633,486 common
shares and 12,633,487 common shares respectively, as of
September 30, 2006, or a total of 25,266,973 common
shares, or 13.44 percent based on 188,008,846
outstanding common shares in September 2006.
Buying.
The
Japanese-owned companies have been buying PLDT shares in
the open market. In August alone, PLDT said in a report
to the New York Stock Exchange that NTT DoCoMo spent
P1,925,831,130.64 in buying PLDT shares in the local
market and $63,929,853.35 in acquiring ADRs.
(The
increase in PLDT’s outstanding common shares results
from the conversion of preferred shares into common,
issuance of common shares under the executive and
employee stock option plan and issuance of underlying
common shares for PLDT’s ADRs.) The combined holdings of
NTT DoCoMo and NTT Communications in PLDT had market
value of P107,526,104,000 computed at P3,100 per share,
PLDT’s 30-day high.
P35-B
pension plan.
San Miguel Corp. Retirement Plan is among the biggest
corporate stockholders of San Miguel Corp. with total
holdings of 482,990,942 common shares, or 15.302 percent
of outstanding shares as of
September 30, 2007.
This ownership entitles it to at least two seats in
SMC’s 15-man board of directors. The pension plan used
to own 307,499,352 common SMC shares as of June 30,
2007, consisting of 215,689,125 common A shares and
91,810,227 common B shares. Of it total holdings as of
September 30, 2007, 234,286,776 common A shares are held
by PCD Nominee Corp.
At a
30-day high of P65 per share, the pension plan’s common
A shares have a market value of P29,248,433,565 and its
B shares P6,243,095,436 or a total of P35,491,529,001.
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