Acen one step closer to fresh infusion as new shares go online

AC Energy Corp. (Acen) will list on the Philippine Stock Exchange on Friday about 2.27 billion common shares, which the company distributed in a program that raised P5.4 billion in fresh funds.

The stock rights offering (SRO), which closed on Jan. 22, is part of a series of steps the Ayala unit needs to accomplish to pave the way for a P20-billion infusion from Arran Investment Pte Ltd., a subsidiary of Singaporean sovereign wealth fund GIC Private Ltd.

This milestone also pushes the Ayala group’s power generation platform along the path of becoming the “largest listed renewables platform in Southeast Asia.”

In a disclosure, Acen said the SRO played out as planned, with the intended number of common shares priced at P2.37 apiece sold to eligible minority stockholders in two rounds. The exercise did not reach the point of extending the offer to institutional investors.

Acen expects to complete before the fourth quarter this year its transformation from what was Phinma Energy Corp. into the Ayala group’s energy platform for both domestic and overseas power projects.

For this purpose, Acen plans to raise as much as $600 million to bankroll the expansion of its portfolio to 5,000 megawatts (MW) of renewable energy capacity by 2025.

The company already has 1,350 MW of renewable capacity and expects to add 1,200 MW this year, representing Acen’s equity in various projects spread out across the Philippines, Australia, India and Vietnam.

In another development, the executive committee of the Ayala group’s oil and gas exploration platform—ACE Enexor Inc.—has decided to withdraw from Petroleum Service Contract No. 6 (SC 6).

ACE Enexor has a 7.78-percent participating interest in one of two exploration blocks of SC 6, dubbed Octon Area or SC 6-A in Northwest Palawan.

“SC 6 does not have any commercial operations,” ACE Enexor said.

Data from PXP Energy Corp., which holds a 5.56-percent stake in SC 6-A, show that Octon covers an area of 1,080 square kilometers.

Led by PXP Energy Corp., which holds 51.65 percent, the SC 6 consortium discovered the Octon field in 1991, where a well yielded 1,816 barrels of oil and 1.8 million cubic feet of gas.