Insiders’ trades. In a filing dated Oct. 27, Augusto Almeda-Lopez, a director of ABS-CBN Corp., said he transferred 287,977 ABS-CBN shares at P31.75 each to his family’s company, ACRIS Corp. in two trades—44,631 shares on October 21 and 243,346 shares on October 24. ACRIS made a separate filing on October 28. After the transfer, Almeda-Lopez directly owns 249,833 ABS-CBN shares…ALG Holdings Corp. bought via a cross sale on Oct. 28 from “a related company” 23.819 million shares in Filinvest Development Corp. (FDC) at P3.85 each. As of September 30, ALG owns 5.067 billion FDC shares, or 67.05 percent…Rodolfo S. Miranda, a director of Manila Mining Corp. bought 10 million Manila Mining B shares at P0.064 each on October 25. Before the acquisition, he owned 4 million Manila Mining A shares. Miranda, who is 68 years old based on a PSE posting, has been an independent director of the company since 2009. A certified public accountant, he retired in 2002 as vice president-controller from Lepanto Consolidated Mining Co. A stockholders’ list as of Sept. 30, 2011 shows Lepanto owns a total of 32.525 billion Manila Mining shares, or 16.1279 percent, divided into 20.479 billion A shares, owns and 12.045 billion B shares.
Buyback. As of June 30, Ayala Corp. (AC) had spent P5.411 billion in buying back a total of 16,325,654 common shares. This translates to average buying price of P331.439 per share. The share buyback left AC with 484,156,681 outstanding common shares. With the stock market falling, AC continued buying back its own shares, which it began in the last quarter of 2007, that as of October 24, it had already piled up a total of 19,984,270 shares. This means from July 1 to October 24, it had reacquired a total of 3,658,616 shares. In a report on the buyback, AC said it bought back 10,000 shares at P294 each and 34,000 shares at P294.60 each, which were 11.296 percent and 11.115-percent less expensive, respectively, compared with the its first six-months buyback average price of P331.439.
Ownership update. Metro Pacific Holdings Inc. (MPHI), which belongs to the group of companies controlled by First Pacific Co. Ltd. of Hong Kong, reported its acquisition of 2.031 billion common shares in Metro Pacific Investments Corp. (MPIC) by converting 66 million units of convertible bonds at conversion price of P3.25 set on May 31. MPHI was ahead by P0.04 when the conversion price is compared with 30-day high of P3.29 but was “losing” P0.69 versus 30-day low of P2.56. MPHI also owns 5 billion MPI Class A preferred shares. MPHI is MPI’s biggest stockholder. As of Sept. 30, it owns 14.423 billion MPI common shares, or 58.65 percent. PCD Nominee Corp. holds 7.614 billion MPIC common shares, or 30.96 percent, for foreigners, and 2.497 billion MPIC common shares for Filipinos. Manuel V. Pangilinan, chairman of the board, is MPI’s biggest insider stockholder. In a posting on the website of the Philippine Stock Exchange, he reported owning more than 21.342 million shares after buying 100,000 shares at P2.81 each.
