Petron ends P20-B preferred share offer

The country’s leading oil refiner Petron Corp. has completed a P20-billion fund-raising from a warmly received follow-on public offering of perpetual preferred shares.

Petron advised the Philippine Stock Exchange on Friday that following the recent offering, it was issuing 20 million additional preferred shares at P1,000 each.

The offering was oversubscribed by 1.5 times the base offer, said Eduardo Francisco, president of BDO Capital & Investment Corp., which was among the joint issue managers, joint lead arrangers and joint book runners together with BPI Capital Corp., China Bank Capital Corp. and PNB Capital and Investment Corp.

“These last few days, we didn’t try to build it as much anymore so that people can get bulk of their orders,” Francisco said in a text message on Saturday.

First Metro Investment Corp. was a co-lead underwriter.

The offer period for the third series of Petron preferred shares ended on June 18.

Petron is issuing two types of securities for this series: 13.4 million PRF3A preferred shares and 6.6 million PRF3B shares.

The dividend rate for PRF3A was set at 6.8713 percent a year while PRF3A dividend was at 7.1383 percent a year.

These preferred shares are expected to be listed on the PSE on June 25.

Petron may redeem the preferred shares after giving no less than 30 or more than 60 days written notice prior to the intended date of redemption, at the redemption price.

Valued by the stock market at P55.5 billion, Petron is a subsidiary of conglomerate San Miguel Corp.