Robinsons Retail dips as market closes lower

The Gokongwei family’s Robinsons Retail Holdings Inc., which raised P26.8 billion in one of the country’s biggest initial public offerings, declined on its first day of trading as the broader Philippine stock index dipped 1.42 percent.

Robinsons Retail closed the session down 2.59 percent to P56.50 a share, below its P58 offer price. It sank as low as 7.6 percent during the session after opening at P56 apiece.

Losses were pared as underwriters supported the issue, a stockbroker said yesterday. Robinsons Retail made its debut during the first trading session after Supertyphoon Yolanda, which ravaged several parts of central Philippines last Friday.

“There is a negative sentiment hanging over the market. We did not expect [Robinsons Retail] to be bucking the trend when the whole market is down,” Bach Johann Sebastian, chief strategist of Robinsons Retail, said after the listing ceremonies yesterday morning.

“We are not surprised with the price coming down a little bit. But we are here for the long haul and we expect the stock price to improve as the company grows,” he said.

Sebastian said the company has yet to determine the extent of damage to its assets in Visayas following Yolanda, adding that they were in the process of securing workers affected by the disaster.

“The Tacloban supermarket and department store, while that is substantial, in the whole scheme of things probably will not affect us too much in terms of financials. The toll on life, security is so much more,” Sebastian said.

Robinsons Retail sold 461.9 million primary shares to raise around $620 million. With the additional overallotment option, the offer would rise to about $650 million, making it the Philippines’s biggest IPO.

The fund raised would be used for the company’s expansion efforts, Robinsons Retail president and chief operating officer Robina Gokongwei-Pe said.

She said they plan to put up 400 stores next year, mainly Ministop convenience stores and South Star Drug pharmacies, to end 2014 with a total of 1,400 stores.