Top Frontier to increase public float

Top Frontier Investment Holdings, the parent company of San Miguel Corp., plans to widen its public float to enhance the company’s trading liquidity.

Ramon S. Ang, president of both SMC and Top Frontier, Thursday told reporters that the P25.88 billion in preferred shares recently issued by Top Frontier were acquired by fund managers.

The shares are convertible into equity, which means the potential conversion can increase Top Frontier’s public float.

Ang said Top Frontier would welcome interest from the investing public to buy shares later on.

Asked up to how much public ownership the group would allow, Ang said there was no specific figure yet, but “the intention is to make it as much as possible so that it will be widely held.”

Top Frontier, which has interests in mining projects, is also unfazed by what many fear to be a tighter regulatory environment for mining.

“It’s quite clear that the Duterte administration has no problem allowing the commercial operation of existing mining companies,” Ang said, adding however that new applications for mineral production sharing agreement (MPSA) would likely face “heavy scrutiny.”

In the case of Top Frontier, he said all its existing mining projects had valid MPSAs.

As such, Ang said the group would push through with plans to build a nickel processing plant near the Nonoc mining site in Surigao, earlier estimated to be a $1.5-billion project.

“We’re on the final stage of drilling of minerals, to be determine the class of deposits and volume, so that the processing plant can be appropriately designed,” Ang said.

The plan is to build a nickel processing plant using high pressure acid leaching (HPAL) technology with a targeted annual output of 200,000 tons.

This is to prepare the company for the possibility that the Philippines—like its Southeast Asian neighbor Indonesia—will ban the export of unprocessed mineral ore.

Apart from the MPSA for Nonoc, Top Frontier through Clariden Holdings’ various subsidiaries holds MPSA for Mt. Cadig nickel project and exploration permits for areas under the Bango gold project. Doris Dumlao-Abadilla