Republic Cement voluntary delisting OKd

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 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, it 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 of Republic shares 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 control of the holding company that owns the land, quarry and mining and all other assets covered by the Constitutional restriction on the foreign ownership. The 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 about P59.7 billion for 100 percent of the cement firm.

The divestment was 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. Doris Dumlao-Abadilla