Jollibee to raise up to P8 B from share sale

Asian food conglomerate Jollibee Foods Corp. (JFC) intends to raise as much as P8 billion from the second tranche of a preferred share issuance.

JFC, in a stock exchange filing said it secured approval from its board to offer to the public additional five million preferred shares with an oversubscription option of up to three million preferred shares at P1,000 apiece.

“JFC is undertaking this funding transaction to maintain strong capital structure, robust leverage position, and optimize liquidity by managing maturities of financial obligations,” the company said.

A portion of the net proceeds will be used to refinance financial obligations, including its callable Series A preferred shares due in October 2024 and for other general business purposes.

The company said the dividend rate and other terms of the planned additional preferred shares will be determined at the time of pricing of the offering.

The peso-denominated preferred shares will be cumulative, non-voting, non participating, non-convertible and redeemable.

The second tranche preferred shares will come from the reclassification of the existing authorized and unissued common shares of the company. As such, it will not expand the total number of authorized shares in its equity base.

BPI Capital Corp., Chinabank Capital Corp. and BDO Capital were tapped as joint underwriters of the offering.

The issuance and listing of the second tranche of the preferred shares is still subject to the approval by the SEC and the Philippine Stock Exchange.

The issuance represents the second tranche of JFC’s 20 million preferred shares approved by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in 2021 under shelf registration.

JFC in 2021 raised P12 billion in its preferred shares offering, which was almost three times oversubscribed.

The first tranche of the preferred shares offered consisted of three million Series A shares with a dividend rate of 3.2821 percent per annum and nine million Series B shares with a dividend rate of 4.2405 percent per annum.

As one of the largest food service companies in the world, JFC has 18 brands across 33 countries.

Its store network as of end2023 expanded by 6.3 percent year-on-year to 6,885 stores worldwide.

JFC’s largest brands by store outlets globally are fast food giant Jollibee with 1,660, CBTL with 1,164, Highlands Coffee with 779, Chowking with 613 and Mang Inasal with 573.