AYALA Corp. has successfully raised P15 billion in fresh capital to fund its investment initiatives from the sale and follow-on offering (FOO) of some 7.5 million preferred “B” shares.
Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE) President and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Ramon Monzon said on Tuesday that the share offer had been warmly received with the oversubscription option fully exercised.
The base offer consisted of 5 million cumulative, nonconvertible, nonparticipating, nonvoting, redeemable and peso-denominated perpetual preferred shares. The oversubscription option composed of 2.5 million shares, offered at a par value of P100 and priced at P2,000 apiece, was also fully exercised.
The offer period ran from Oct. 1 to 7, 2024. The initial dividend rate for the reissued preferred shares is 6.0538 percent.
“This FOO comes a year after Ayala’s offering of its preferred A shares, which was likewise oversubscribed 1.3 times,” Monzon said at the bell ringing ceremony on Tuesday.
“The oversubscription of this back-to-back FOO offerings proves that a business founded on integrity and social consciousness, and is managed by professional and visionary leaders, will always command special attention and support from investors,” he added.
Cezar Consing, president and CEO of the country’s oldest conglomerate, said that the Ayala group has always been a staunch supporter of the Philippine equity market since the company listed some 50 years ago.
“Today, you can count on Ayala Corp., Ayala Land, Bank of the Philippine Islands, Globe [Telecom], ACEN, and Areit (the group’s real estate investment trust) as among the most valuable of the country’s public companies,” Consing said.
The group has also been a regular debt and preferred share issuer and Ayala companies account for more than 18 percent of all outstanding preferred shares on the PSE, he noted.
“The 15 billion preferred shares issue that we list today will help us continue to build businesses that enable people to thrive. Our bigger and better-known businesses — real estate, banking, telecommunications, renewable energy — have been beneficiaries of our ability to raise funding at the holding company level.”
The ability to raise funds will also benefit less well-known businesses — health care, logistics, infrastructure, education, fintech, and electric mobility — as the conglomerate’s goal is to grow these firms to scale “so that even these relatively newer businesses can have a positive impact on the lives of a significant number of our countrymen,” he added.
BPI Capital Corp., BDO Capital and Investment Corp., China Bank Capital Corp., PNB Capital and Investment Corp., RCBC Capital Corp., and SB Capital Investment Corp. were the joint lead underwriters and bookrunners for the offering.
BPI Capital was also the sole issue manager while PSE trading participants and First Metro Investment Corp. were the selling agents.
China Bank Capital Corp. Managing Director Juan Paolo Colet said “we are very pleased with the strong market demand for Ayala’s preferred shares offering. The issuance was heavily oversubscribed by a good balance of institutional and retail investors, who sought a blue-chip investment with a fairly high dividend yield.”
Ayala shares on Tuesday rose P10, or 1.39 percent, to close at P730 each amid a 1.77-percent rise in the benchmark PSE index.
Be the first to comment