Pacifica’s tender offer snubbed

Minority shareholders of dormant mining firm Pacifica Inc. snubbed an offer by the company’s new controlling group to buy out their shares, deciding to stick around in anticipation of the backdoor-listing of local restaurant chain Kuya J.

In a tender offer report filed at the Philippine Stock Exchange on Wednesday, Pacifica said that following the close of the tender offer period on Feb. 3, it tender offer agent confirmed that it did not receive any tender offer application from stockholders of the company.

Some 14.33 billion or 35.8 percent of Pacifica’s shares are held by the public.

The tender offer was made by a group led by businessman Lowell Yu through Unido Capital Holdings Inc., offering to acquire shares held by minority investors of Pacifica at a price per share of P0.007.

As Pacific’s market price is now much higher – finishing at P.04 centavos on Feb. 3 when the tender offer closed – all minority investors logically decided they were better off holding on to their shares and betting on the infusion of new business into Pacifica.

On Wednesday, Pacifica announced that Unido had finalized a deal to acquire the shares held by 9th Kingdom Investments Corp. (13.42 billion shares) and Mikro-Tech Capital Inc. (1.18 billion shares). These account for a combined 36.5 percent stake in Pacifica.

Combined with the existing shareholders of affiliate iHoldings Inc., Yu’s group has thus obtained a controlling interest in Pacifica with 64.17 percent.