JG Summit to increase shareholder base

JG Summit Holdings Inc. (JGSHI) on Friday said its affiliates sold shares to foreign investors in a bid to expand its shareholder base.

In a disclosure to the Philippine Stock Exchange, JGSHI said it conducted an accelerated overnight equity placement on Thursday at an upsized offer size of $125 million because of strong global investor demand amounting to nearly three times the base deal size.

The initial offer size of the transaction was $75 million.

A total of 215 million JG Summit shares were sold at P25 apiece, a 12.28 percent discount from Thursday’s closing price of P28.50 each.

Its shares fell 11.40 percent or P3.25 to close at P25.25 apiece on Friday.

In a separate disclosure, Universal Robina Corp. said that it sold 57.66 million common shares of JGHSI.

“The transaction was done in or- der to widen the shareholder base of the company, and as a response to strong demand for the company’s stock,” URC said.

UBS AG was the sole bookrunner for the transaction.

In the first nine months, JGSHI ‘s net income attributable to equity holders dropped to P7.82 billion following the reduction of its ownership in its airline unit and market valuation losses because of volatility in the capital markets.

Consolidated revenues went up 16.5 percent to P105.31 billion in the first three quarters from P90.40 billion a year ago.

JGHSHI has businesses in food and beverage, real estate, air transportation, banking, and petrochemicals.

Last year, the conglomerate completed the sale of Digital Telecommunications Philippines Inc. to Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co..