2GO shareholders set to ratify delisting

GOING PRIVATE The SM group will buy out 2GO’s minority shareholders next month. —FILE PHOTO

Shareholders of Sy-led 2GO Group Inc. will ratify the company’s voluntary delisting from the Philippine Stock Exchange during its annual stockholders’ meeting on April 18 this year.

This comes after the Sy family conglomerate, SM Investments Corp., approved plans to buy out all minority stockholders of 2GO with the aim of taking the 73-year-old logistics group private.

Last Feb. 28, SM Investments said its board approved the tender offer for up to 378.82 million common shares, or 15.4 percent of the company, worth about P4.4 billion based on 2GO’s current share price of P11.64 each.

The conglomerate said the final tender offer price will be subject to an “independent third party fairness opinion.”

The SM group is one of the country’s biggest companies with interests spanning real estate, banking, and retail.

While 2GO was among its investments outside the core businesses, it was seen as part of the conglomerate’s strategic push into the critical logistics sector.

SM Investments acquired a controlling stake in 2GO two years after buying the shares of Davao-based tycoon Dennis Uy’s Chelsea Logistics and Infrastructure Holdings Corp. at P8.50 each.

2GO, which was once owned by the Aboitiz Group before it exited the business over a decade ago, recorded turnaround profits of P312 million last year.

Revenues during the period rose 25 percent to P19.3 billion as business recovered following the removal of most pandemic restrictions.

SM Investments, which controls the country’s largest bank and shopping mall group, said net income in 2022 grew 53 percent to P61.7 billion while total revenues jumped 28 percent to P553.8 billion.

It owns BDO Unibank Inc., which net income increased over a third to P57.1 billion last year, and SM Prime Holdings Inc., whose earnings rose 38 percent to P30.1 billion.

The group’s total assets expanded by 9 percent to P1.5 trillion last year, its latest financial disclosure showed. INQ