Eagle Cement to delist shares after P110-B SMC buyout

Billionaire Ramon Ang’s Eagle Cement wants to delist from the Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE) on Feb. 28 next year.

Eagle, which was acquired by Ang-led conglomerate San Miguel Corp. (SMC), filed a petition for voluntary removal from the exchange.

Shares of the company have been suspended from trading since Dec. 14 after the acquisition caused its public float to fall below the minimum requirement of 10 percent.

Eagle said in its petition it will comply with all of the exchange’s requirements for delisting.

“On the basis of the foregoing, we respectfully request the approval by the PSE of this petition, with 28 February 2023 as the effectivity date of the delisting of the company shares,” Eagle said.

San Miguel earlier paid about P110 billion to buy nearly all of Eagle’s shares, including those held by minority stockholders.

Eagle, which went public in 2017, operates a fully integrated cement plant in San IIdefonso, Bulacan, with an annual production capacity of 8.6 million metric tons, equivalent to 215 million bags per year.

Company’s performance

Eagle controls an estimated market share of 29 percent in the combined areas of Metro Manila, Central Luzon and Southern Tagalog.

During the first nine months of the year, its profits fell 17 percent to P4.22 billion on mounting cost pressures.

Net sales from January to November rose 24 percent to P20.1 billion due to higher selling prices and volumes.

Of total cement sales, bagged cement still accounted for the bulk of the figure at 84 percent while the remaining 16 percent was derived from bulk cement, with domestic demand still largely coming from the private sector.

San Miguel owns North Cement Corp. (NCC), which supplies cement in Central and Northern Luzon with a production capacity of 2.2 million tons of finished cement per year.

In 2021, NCC was merged with San Miguel Northern Cement Inc., which is developing capacity for another 4.73 million tons of cement per year.

The conglomerate also owns Southern Concrete Industries Inc., whose cement grinding plant in Santa Cruz in Davao del Sur was expected to start commercial operations in the first semester of 2022.