Seacem set to resume trading Thursday

The Philippine Stock Exchange is set to lift on Thursday the trading suspension on Southeast Asia Cement Holdings Inc. (Seacem) as the company finally complied with the bourse’s 10 percent minimum public ownership rule.

In a memorandum, PSE office-in-charge Roel Refran said trading on Seacem, which used the ticker CMT, would resume on June 13 at 9 am.

Seacem was among the companies suspended by the PSE on the first trading day of this year for having insufficient public float.

On June 5, Seacem signed two separate subscription agreements for the issuance of a total of 554 million in unissued shares to new subscribers.  This raised its public float to 10.13 percent from only 2.4 percent at end-2012.

It was earlier reported that property holding firm 8990 Group had agreed to buy 89.87 percent of Seacem for P2.57 billion. The same shareholder group acquired the shell company of IP Converge last year with the intention of transforming the company into a new property holding firm to be renamed 8990 Holdings. The company is behind the Deca Homes, a developer specializing in residential subdivisions targeting the mass market.

Listed companies that would still fail to meet the minimum public float requirement by the end of June would be delisted from the PSE.—Doris C. Dumlao