Globe to redeem preferred shares

THE perpetual non-voting preferred shares of Ayalaled Globe Telecom Inc. will be suspended for trading starting Friday morning as the company prepares to redeem the said shares in August.

Globe, the country’s second largest telecom operator, has asked for the voluntary trading suspension of the preferred shares for its redemption on August 22, the seventh year anniversary from the issue date of the said shares.

“In view of the foregoing, the record date for the full redemption of the shares is set for July 28, 2021, and the trading suspension on our GLOPP shares is set starting July 23, 2021, which is the ex-date. The shares will be recorded as treasury stock of Globe and shall be retired,” the company said in its disclosure.

The Philippine Stock Exchange has approved the voluntary trading suspension.

“The effect of the redemption will decrease the number of foreign shareholders of preferred shares,” the company said.

Globe issued some 20 million nonvoting preferred shares, which it will redeem at P500 apiece. It based the said amount on the redemption price equal to the issue price of the shares plus accrued and unpaid dividends up until August 22 based on the dividend rate of 5.2006 percent per annum.

The redeemed shares will be recorded as treasury stock of Globe and shall be retired, the company said.

GLOPP shares closed on Monday at P505 apiece, while Globe’s common shares closed at P1,930 per share.

In June Globe signed term loan facilities with China Banking Corp. and Philippine National Bank for P5 billion and P7 billion, respectively. The company also signed a term loan facility with Bank of China (Hong Kong) Limited for $100 million last May.

The loans will be used to finance the company’s capital expenditures.

Globe expects to spend a new record of P70 billion for capital expenditures in 2021, mainly for the continuous modernization of its network.

Globe said it spent P19.1 billion in capital expenditures as of endmarch, exceeding last year’s spending by 79 percent. The company invested heavily in data-related requirements to support the surge in data usage.

The company is building more cell sites and upgrading all its sites to fourth generation/long-term evolution technology (4G/LTE).