Roxas and Co sells 2.56-M treasury shares

LISTED holding firm Roxas and Company Inc. (RCI) announced that at the close of trading on Thursday, it sold a total of 2.56 million treasury shares at a price of P4.50 per share, in a bid to raise funds for working capital and expansion projects.

The company made a series of disclosures to the Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE) in connection with the transaction.

At 11:45 a.m., the company requested for a voluntary trading halt of RCI shares, which was approved by the PSE. The shares resumed trading at 2:15 p.m.

“In compliance with the disclosure rules of the Exchange, the Company hereby requests for a voluntary trading halt in view of a material disclosure made by the Company. The disclosure refers to the sale of 870,000 common shares from the Company’s treasury shares at a price of PhP4.50 per share to address the market demand and the current increase in the market price of RCI shares,” it said.

In a subsequent statement, the company said: “Upon lifting of the trading halt, additional treasury shares amounting to 858,000 shares were sold at a price of Php4.50 per share. The total number of treasury shares sold at a close of trading hours is 2,563,000 shares at Php4.50 per share.”

The company had also informed the PSE on January 3 that it crossed P2 million of its treasury shares at P2.35 per share in favor of Pedro Roxas as his annual compensation as chairman of the company.

RCI engages in the operations of sugar mill and refinery facilities and in the real estate business and is the holding company of the Roxas Group. Its main holdings are raw real estate located in Nasugbu, Batangas, sugar-related assets and businesses held through Roxas Holdings, Inc. (RHI), another publicly-listed company, and real estate development through its property arm, Roxaco Land Corporation (Roxaco).