Filinvest to raise $203M in follow-on offer

Vol. XX, No. 126
Tuesday, January 23, 2007 | MANILA, PHILIPPINES

Corporate News

Gotianun-led Filinvest Land, Inc. expects to raise gross proceeds of P5.92 billion from the primary offering of 3.7 billion common shares, the listed property developer said.

In a disclosure, FLI said the company and Filinvest Alabang, Inc. (FAI) priced a $203-million offering of 5.4 billion common shares at a price of P1.60 per share.

"The offer price represents a 5.8% discount to the volume weighted average price of FLI’s shares on the Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE) for the 10 trading days ending on Jan. 19, 2007 of P1.69," it said.

Yesterday, the PSE imposed a trading halt on FLI shares as previously announced. Virginia O. Luy, head of listings department, said trading of FLI shares will resume on Feb. 6.

FLI, one of the country’s leading full-range residential property developers, will have a follow-on offering of up to 5.4 billion common shares wherein 3.7 billion are new shares while 1.7 billion secondary shares will be offered by Filinvest Alabang.

Filinvest Alabang is the property development unit of Filinvest Development Corp. responsible for the master development plan, land and infrastructure development, financing, and marketing of Filinvest Corporate City.

UBS Investment Bank was tapped as sole international underwriter and sole bookrunner and ATR KimEng Capital Partners acted as domestic lead underwriter for the offering.

International investors will corner 95% of the offering equivalent to 5.13 billion shares while the remaining 5% or 270 million secondary shares will be offered and sold by FAI to the PSE trading participants. Based on 132 active trading participants, the allocation per trading participant is 2.045 million common shares.

In a letter to the PSE, ATR KimEng Capital Partners managing director Marcelito R. Ordonez said the domestic offer is a secondary offering.

"Therefore, investors will have to pay costs and expenses related to the purchase of the shares through the Exchange. As such, the purchase price will be the offer price plus costs and expenses, or computed as the offer price x 1.00301, rounded of (sic) to three decimal places. The resulting purchase price is P1.605 per offer share," he wrote.

FLI’s portion of the net proceeds of the offering will be used to finance its development projects this year. It said FLI has budgeted P5 billion in capital expenditure for 2007, of which P3.7 billion is earmarked for its residential developments and P1.3 billion for office developments.

As stabilizing agent, UBS AG has been granted an option exercisable in whole or in part from and including the date of listing and when trading of FLI’s new shares commences on the PSE and ending on March 9, to purchase up to an additional 809.85 million shares at the offer price, solely to cover over-allotments, if any.

In a disclosure dated Jan. 20, FLI alternate corporate information officer Conrad S. Tolentino said the company’s board of directors resolved to designated company president Joseph M. Yap as authorized signatory to an international underwriting agreement with UBS AG.

The Filinvest Group is one of the leading real estate developers in the Philippines and has developed over 1,800 hectares of land. — Ruby Anne M. Rubio

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