Dennis Uy grows empire by more than 5X

DAVAO-based businessman Dennis Uy has grown his empire by more than five times from 2016 to 2017, thanks to an aggressive buying spree backed by funding from local banks led by Syowned BDO and the Bank of China.

Uy’s holding company Udenna Corp., whose principal office is in Davao City, grew its net income to a whopping P4.3 billion last year from just P780 million in 2016, according to documents filed with the Philippine Stock Exchange.

As of end-December 2017, Udenna has investments in at least 50 companies that span a wide range of industries – from oil and petroleum through his flagship Phoenix Petroleum to logistics, to integrated casino resorts, to construction, to infra- structure and to a little known company that provides chartered plane and helicopter rides.

It also has four joint venture arrangements for different businesses including GoHotels Davao Inc., a partnership with the Gokongwei-owned JG Summit Holdings Inc.

The documents, disclosed by listed ISM Communications Corp. as part of a share swap arrangement with Udenna, do not include Udenna’s acquisitions for this year.

The latest acquisition is Phoenix’s investment in Autostrada Motore, the official distributor of Ferrari in the Philippines, which marks Uy’s foray into the luxury cars business.

Udenna also recently acquired 70 percent of Conti’s, a restaurant chain famous for cakes.

Nevertheless, the 2017 financials provide a glimpse of how fast and how much Udenna has grown in just a year.

The growth, spurred by an aggressive buying spree is backed by interest-bearing loans of P85.8 billion as of end-2017, up 200 percent year on year from just P28.4 billion a year ago.

Of the P85.8, current loans as of end-2017 amounted to P34.7 billion, up 49 percent from P23.3 billion in the same period a year ago.

Non-current loans, or not due in a year, meanwhile amounted to P51.1 billion compared to just P5.2 billion a year ago, an increase of more than 800 percent.

The loans are from major lenders that include BDO, Lucio Tan’s Philippine National Bank, and Bank of China.

Uy is transforming ISM Communications into his listed holding company through a backdoor listing. ISM will be renamed Udenna Holdings Corp.

The arrangement is made possible through a P72 billion share swap deal with ISM, after Udenna earlier acquired a 45.13 percent stake in the holding company.

ISM’s board, chaired by businessman Eric Recto, already approved the deal as well as an increase in the company’s capital stock to P75 billion from P2.8 billion.

For the share swap, ISM plans to issue 24.05 billion shares to shareholders of Udenna at a price of P3 a piece in exchange for two billion Udenna shares.

The company has set a special stockholders’ meeting on Dec. 18 to seek shareholders’ approval for the transaction.