Backdoor-listing of LBC Express thru FED ok’d

SHAREHOLDERS of Federal Resources Investment Group Inc. (FED) approved the company’s transformation from a dormant holding firm into a logistics play with the backdoor-listing of courier operator LBC Express Holdings Inc.

FED’s shareholders agreed in a recent meeting to acquire LBC Express at a book value of no less than P1 billion alongside an increase in the company’s authorized capital and a prospective follow-on public offering of shares, FED said in a disclosure to the Philippine Stock Exchange on Monday.

The shareholders amended the company’s articles of incorporation to boost the authorized capital stock to P3 billion from P100 million at present, divided into shares with a par value of P1 each. This move will still require approval from the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Likewise approved by stockholders was the issuance of shares in one or more tranches – whether out of the increase in authorized capital or out of the unissued capital stock – at P1 per share to LBC Development Corp., the controlling shareholder of LBC Express which is in turn led by the Araneta family.

LBC Express currently holds bulk of all the daily cargo space allocation of carriers Philippine Airlines and Cebu Pacific. It was the first to introduce 24-hour air service delivery in the country. In terms of distribution capability, it has over a thousand branches in the Philippines and over 60 branches in the United States, Canada plus a host of other smaller countries.

Likewise part of the transformation is the change in the trading symbol of the company in the Philippine Stock Exchange from FED to LBC.

Prior to taking this backdoor-listing route, the LBC wanted to embark on an initial public offering but this was sidelined by the woes of an affiliate bank – LBC Development Bank – which had been shut down by banking regulators.