THE listed holding firm of the Aboitiz Group has acquired a majority interest in a local money-remittance company for over P1 billion.
Aboitiz Equity Ventures Inc. (AEV) bought a 51-percent stake in Petnet Inc., equivalent to 2,461,338 shares, for P407.78 each. Petnet said it has around 2,500 locations nationwide via a mix of own units and business-partner agreements.
AEV President and CEO Erramon I. Aboitiz said he was elated by the Petnet acquisition of the leading remittance company
“Petnet has a large growth and development potential with the continued increase in remittances from OFWs [overseas Filipino workers] and with a large opportunity to distribute complementary products through an extensive network of outlets,” he said.
In 2014 remittances accounted for 8 percent of the Philippines’s gross domestic product, according to Aboitiz. The annual total amount of money sent by OFWs back home has grown by around 7 percent over the last two years, documents the company provided said.
Aboitiz said seeing the fragmented money-transfer market, AEV, as new majority owner, “can add significant value in Petnet’s strategy to grow and potentially consolidate the market organically.”
While AEV owns a 51-percent equity ownership in Petnet, the latter still remains as a standalone business within the Aboitiz Group.
Its current management team is in place, and all the existing shareholders also stay with a 49-percent stake ownership.
“It is our intention to act as a very active owner from a board-level perspective, but Petnet will continue to be a self-driven unit,” Aboitiz noted.
For his part, Petnet CEO Larry Ocampo said the company “has reached a growth stage where it needs to take some big steps both internally and externally.
“We think that AEV is the right active owner to support this development. Personally, I look forward to the opportunity to take the company through this next growth journey in partnership with AEV.”
Expecting the success of their new acquisition, Aboitiz said that they are, likewise, open to “potential add-on acquisitions” if it fits “strategically” to their goals.
For the first three months of this year, AEV reported a consolidated net income of P4.1 billion, as core income also stood at the same figure for the period, recording a decline of 7 percent year-on-year. This translates to earnings per share of P0.74.
The company’s power strategic business unit contributed 79 percent to the company’s total earnings, while banking, food and property were at 9 percent, 10 percent and two percent, respectively.