The Securities and Exchange Commission has approved a plan by local broadcasting giant ABS-CBN Corp. to raise up to P10 billion from a retail bond offering.
Based on a registration statement approved by the SEC, ABS-CBN will tap the debt market in two tranches, the first of which is a P5 billion offering of seven- and ten-year bonds. The offer period is set to start on Jan. 27 through Feb. 3.
About P4 billion will be raised from an offering of seven-year bonds due on 2021, which will be priced at an indicative spread of 110 to 150 basis points over comparative PDST-F, or an estimated range of 5.3375 percent and 5.7375 percent.
The remaining P1 billion will be in the form of ten-year bonds due on 2024, which will carry an estimated interest rate of between 5.4979 percent and 5.7979 percent.
The balance of the bond offering will be issued within the year.
ABS-CBN has mandated BDO Capital & Investment Corp., BPI Capital Corp. and HSBC to underwrite the bond offering.
The issuer will have the right, but not the obligation, to redeem all of the outstanding bonds.
Minimum investment is P50,000, while additional investment will be in the denomination of P10,000.
The bonds will be listed on the local fixed income trading platform Philippine Dealing & Exchange Corp.
Based on the registration statement, proceeds from the offering will fund various growth initiatives, with focus on developing content and distribution platform, extracting synergies from the company’s current core business and key competencies.
In particular, ABS-CBN plans to invest in production forward planning such as program canning, soundstages, digital terrestrial television (DTT) coverage expansion and pay TV business expansion.
Program canning refers to the advance production of TV programs and movies to build inventory, which will allow flexibility in programming and efficiency in the production process.
DTT is considered the next phase in TV broadcasting technology, and will provide clearer reception and better signal compared to analog broadcasting.
On the pay TV business, the company, through SkyCable, continues to keep a leading position in this segment.