Top Frontier listing on Jan. 13

TOP FRONTIER Investment Holdings Inc., San Miguel Corp.’s controlling stockholder, is listing by way of introduction, or without any initial public offering, on Jan. 13.

According to a Philippine Stock Exchange memorandum, Top Frontier will soon start trading under the ticker TFHI. It will list on the bourse initially at P178 per share, giving it a market capitalization of P87.25 billion.

Top Frontier has 490.196 million issued shares, of which 332.886 million are outstanding while 157.31 million (32 percent) are treasury-held shares.

Once listed, analysts said the treasury-held shares could be reissued to raise funds for expansion.

SMC earlier obtained regulatory clearance to distribute to its common shareholders 240.196 million shares in Top Frontier—equivalent to its 49 percent stake—as property dividend at a ratio of one Top Frontier share for every 10 SMC common shares held.

The distribution of shares in Top Frontier intends to address cross-ownership issues, SMC president Ramon S. Ang earlier said. With this scheme, SMC will no longer own shares in Top Frontier although the latter will still be SMC’s controlling stockholder.

As of end-September, Top Frontier is the lead shareholder of SMC, controlling 56.6 percent of direct shares and another 9.49 percent in indirect shares lodged with Philippine Depository and Trust Corp.

After the distribution of the 49 percent stake in Top Frontier to SMC’s shareholders, the remaining 51 percent stake in Top Frontier will be controlled by an investor group that includes former Trade Minister Roberto V. Ongpin, Iñigo Zobel and Joselito Campos.

On Friday, SMC president Ramon S. Ang said San Miguel’s power generation unit SMC Global Power Holdings Corp. would pursue plans to sell 49 percent of its shares through an initial public offering this coming year.