PNOC-EC shelves secondary offering plan

MANILA, Philippines—PNOC Exploration Corp. will no longer push through with its proposed secondary offering, which would have allowed it to comply with the listing rules of the Philippine Stock Exchange in time for the November 30 deadline, according to the country’s economic managers.

But PNOC-EC, the upstream oil and coal arm of state-run Philippine National Oil Co., will continue to be publicly listed, Energy Secretary Jose Rene D. Almendras said.

“[The government] would like to keep PNOC-EC public,” Almendras said last Friday. “It was also agreed that this is not the time to sell … considering the [slump in the market].”

The economic managers decided to form a group, which would be headed by the Department of Finance to determine the proper timing for the planned secondary offering and the correct valuation of PNOC-EC shares and assets.

According to PSE rules, the public must hold at least 10 percent of PNOC-EC’s stock. But the government, through PNOC, still holds 99.71 percent of PNOC-EC shares, while the public owns only 0.29 percent. PNOC-EC should undertake a secondary offering of shares to comply with the 10-percent public float requirement of the PSE.

The government is willing to pay the fine, estimated earlier at around P3 million, for non-compliance to the listing rules, Almendras said.

Also, the PSE has assured the government that PNOC-EC will not be delisted from the local bourse even if it fails to comply with market requirements.

PNOC-EC chairman and CEO Gemiliano C. Lopez Jr. earlier noted that the secondary offering would not only be for compliance. It would also boost capitalization, “enabling it to enhance its capability to discover and develop more indigenous energy sources like oil, coal and gas.”