Logistics firm LBC prepares to list more shares worth P1.2 billion

The board of LBC Express Holdings Inc. has approved a plan to raise as much as P1.2 billion from a fresh offering of shares.

Targeted for the first quarter of 2017, the offering consists of 69.1 million common shares, or 59.1 million secondary shares and 10 million primary shares.

“The offer shares will be sold at a price to be mutually determined by the authorized representatives of the company following discussions with the issue managers and/or underwriters on the basis of book-building,” LBC said in a disclosure to the Philippine Stock Exchange on Monday.

LBC president and chief operating officer Mike Camahort earlier said LBC was targeting to sell shares at a maximum price of P17 per share.

At this price, the proposed offering can reach as much as P1.2 billion, which would subsequently push LBC’s market capitalization to P20 to P24 billion. Shareholder dilution is not expected to exceed 10 percent.

On why LBC was planning to sell more secondary than primary shares, Camahort had said: “We did a backdoor and some recovery is required since we acquired a publicly listed company. But moving forward, the intention is to really to be able to list eventually more shares and, obviously, increase the float. For now our goal is to be able to complete the reverse listing process.”

LBC has 1.42 billion outstanding shares at present, of which only 40.9 million are listed. As this was the existing structure of the shell company acquired by LBC, he said it would be more difficult to overhaul everything.