Alterra readies follow-on offering of 500M shares

Alterra Capital Partners Inc., the backdoor listing vehicle of biotech firm Philab Industries Inc., has obtained board approval to work on a follow-on offering.

In a recent disclosure to the Philippine Stock Exchange, Alterra said its board had approved a follow-on offering of 500 million common shares “to be sold at a price to be mutually determined by the corporation and its mandated underwriter/s, following a book-building exercise.”

The board has mandated local investment house Philippine Commercial Capital Inc. as lead underwriter for the proposed offering.

Based on Alterra’s market price of about P8 a share, the proposed offering is worth at least P4 billion.

The company, however, earlier indicated that it would like to raise P2 billion from a stock offering this year.

To date, Alterra has only 62.276 million outstanding common shares.  It is valued by the stock market at around P558 million.

In addition, the board authorized the corporation to file a registration statement for the offer shares with the Securities and Exchange Commission and the listing with the Philippine Stock Exchange Inc.

In an earlier interview, Philab president Hector Thomas Navasero said Philab would roll out in domestic and overseas markets self-diagnostic kits that will allow households to conduct tests for mosquito-carried diseases like dengue and malaria.

Philab—one of the country’s foremost providers of laboratory equipment and the oldest business institution servicing the fields of medical and scientific research—also plans to set up a genomics laboratory to help people determine complete DNA sequences and perform genetic mapping to help understand diseases.

At present, Philab derives 80 percent of its business from the education sector. The company serves the Department of Education as well as various universities and research centers by providing science teaching kits. Projected revenue collection from DepEd alone is seen at about P2.4 billion by this year.