National Book Store backdoor listing to take time — Ramos exec

THE PLANNED backdoor listing of National Book Store, Inc. could push through next year at the earliest, an official of the Ramos group said late Tuesday.

The company’s plans to go public via Vulcan Industrial & Mining Corp. surfaced in 2012, when National Book Store acquired shares in the listed dormant miner.

Adrian Paulino S. Ramos, director and treasurer of Vulcan as well as a major stockholder of National Book Store, said the latter was still undertaking systems upgrade as part of preparations for its debut as a publicly listed firm.

“We’re still doing a lot of work in our back-end systems. As a matter of fact, we decided to invest in a new ERP (enterprise resource planning) system for National,” Mr. Ramos said on the sidelines of Vulcan’s stockholders’ meeting in Mandaluyong City, explaining that the ERP system will help the company meet reportorial requirements once it’s public.

“As a public company, you have regulatory requirements and a lot of submission for compliance purposes,” Mr. Ramos said.

“So basically it’s for data and transparency. This system will help us.”

He would not divulge the amount of investment for ERP, but noted the system is expected to be online by the end of the year.

“So we will see it from there,” Mr. Ramos said, adding that the listing could proceed next year.

“The soonest, next year… But we still have to see the [market] environment next year.”

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In August last year, Vulcan disclosed that National Book Store subscribed to 850 million of its shares at P1 apiece. Mr. Ramos said then that the acquisition brought National Book Store’s shareholding in Vulcan to 68%.

The shares will come from Vulcan’s planned increase in authorized capital stock to P4 bil- lion worth of shares from P600 million, approved by a majority of stockholders in May last year but still subject to approval by the Securities and Exchange Commission. Vulcan had said then that it expected to secure approval of the listing of the subscribed shares with the Philippine Stock Exchange “within a reasonable time.”

The planned backdoor listing is now delayed from the original target to complete the move within 2014.

In 2013, the listed miner obtained shareholder approval to change its corporate name to National Book Store Retail Corp. and its primary purpose to retail from mining. Shareholders also approved as the company’s secondary activity wholesaling, publishing, printing, manufacturing, and distribution, among others.

In October 2012, Vulcan announced that it was considering an exit from the mining industry.

Subsequently, National Book Store acquired Vulcan shares from The Philodrill Corp. and Anglo Philippine Holdings Corp. — two listed firms also owned by the Ramos family. The initial ac- quisition involved 610,000 shares owned by Philodrill and 12.25 million shares held by Anglo, all valued at P1 apiece.

National Book Store operates the country’s largest bookstore chain. It was founded by Socorro G. Ramos before the Second World War in the form of a small shop in Manila’s Escolta district, selling school and office supplies, novels, and textbooks.

In addition to the flagship bookstore, National Book Store also operates more specialized stores like Powerbooks, NBS Express, and Bestsellers. It is the local franchise holder for Hallmark greeting cards under unit Filstar Distributors Corp.

Vulcan was incorporated in 1953 and had participated in oil exploration projects since 1976 until these interests were trans- ferred to related firm Philodrill in 2011.

Shares of Vulcan closed at P1.41 apiece yesterday, unchanged from Tuesday. —