LRI to be delisted from PSE on April 25

THE PHILIPPINE Stock Exchange has approved the delisting of cement-maker Republic Cement & Building Materials Inc. – formerly Lafarge Republic Inc. (LRI) – effective April 25 this year.

Republic Cement said in a disclosure posted on Monday that it had received a letter from the PSE stating that the petition for voluntary delisting had been approved.

The company’s shares will be deleted from the official registry of the PSE effective April 25, subject to the payment of certain fees, the disclosure said.

Republic Cement – now 99.09-percent owned by the consortium of conglomerate Aboitiz Equity Ventures (AEV) and British firm CRH Holdings – is bowing out of the local bourse after completing a voluntary tender offer to minority shareholders.

Trading on shares of Republic has been suspended since Sept. 15.

The AEV-CRH partnership in Republic was structured in such a way that there will be two symbiotic companies holding the assets. AEV will have majority of the holding company that owns the land, quarry and mining and all other assets covered by the Constitutional restriction on the foreign ownership while other manufacturing and sales/marketing vehicles will be folded into another holding firm to be majority controlled by CRH.

Last year, LaFarge finalized the deal to sell its Philippine unit (LRI) to the CRH-AEV consortium for around P59.7 billion for 100 percent of the cement firm. The divestment was as a consequence of the global merger between global cement giants LaFarge and Holcim.

For its part, AEV’s investment in cement manufacturing is seen in line with its foray into infrastructure as the fifth leg of its core businesses after power, banking, food and property development.