THE voluntary tender offer launched by Philippine Airlines Inc. (PAL) and its listed parent PAL Holdings Inc. last month was shunned by their investors, with less than a percent availing themselves of the discounted bid.
In a disclosure to the local bourse, the listed company reported that only two investors sold their shares at the discounted price of P1.19 apiece.
Standard Chartered Bank monetized its 575 shares, while Hong Kong & Shanghai Banking Corp. sold 3,000 stocks to the corporate vehicle for the transaction, the brief filing showed.
The airline operator bought the said shares for P4,245.25. The amount represents an insignificant percentage of the 10.22-percent public float of PAL Holdings. The group of taipan Lucio C. Tan launched the voluntary tender offer in October, setting a tag price of P0.31 apiece for the shares in the airline, and P1.19 each for the interest in the holding firm.
The offer ran from October 22 to November 19. Payment for the shares bought was settled on November 25.
The offer price is equivalent to the payment made by Buona Sorte Holdings Inc. and Horizon Global Investments Ltd. to San Miguel Equity Investments Inc.’s 49-percent stake in Trustmark Holdings Corp.
The two firms are owned by the billionaire, and collectively own 89.78 percent of PAL Holdings. Tan thus owns 88.23 percent of the airline through Trustmark.
The unit of diversified conglomerate San Miguel Corp. sold its shares in Trustmark for over $1 billion.
The voluntary tender-offer transaction was launched to allow the minority stockholders of the airline and its parent to monetize their investment in the company, PAL President Jaime J. Bautista earlier said.
This sent negative signals to its stockholders, an analyst who requested anonymity earlier commented.
The analyst called the overly discounted transaction as “unfortunate,” as this “shows that they don’t value their shareholders.”
Shares of PAL Holdings ended on Thursday’s trading at P3.98 apiece.
Lorenz S. Marasigan