PSE oks Del Monte Pacific’s $160M preferred shares offer

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The Philippine Stock Exchange has approved a plan by Campos-led food and beverage conglomerate Del Monte Pacific Ltd. (DMPL) to raise around $160 million from a new tranche of preferred shares offering.

The offering – consisting of 16 million preferred shares priced at $10 each- will begin on Nov. 28 (Tuesday) and will run until Dec. 8, based on an offering circular issued by the local stock exchange on Friday.

Tentative listing date for the preferred shares is on Dec. 15.

BDO Capital & Investment Corp. is the sole issue manager and together with China Bank Capital Corp., is also a joint lead underwriter and bookrunner for this issuance.

This tranche is part of the shelf registration of up to 36 million perpetual, cumulative, non-voting, non-participating, non-convertible and redeemable preferred shares.

Based on bourse rules, the broker allocation of 20 percent of the offer shares in any offering of dollar-denominated securities (DDS) will only be distributed among eligible brokers at the time of the offering.

There are so far 14 trading participants eligible to handle DDS: AP Securities; Armstrong Securities; Astra Securities; BA Securities; BDO Securities; BPI Securities; First Metro Securities Brokerage; IGC Securities; Mandarin Securities; Philippine Equity Partners; Sunsecurities; Venture Securities; The First Resources Management and Securities and Wealth Securitie.

Proceeds from the offering will be primarily used for the payment of the $154 million balance of the bridge loan facility extended by BDO. That bridge loan partially financed the acquisition of the US consumer business of Del Monte Foods Inc.