DITO CME: Follow-on offer to proceed before end-2024

| PHOTO: DITO CME Holdings Corp. website

DITO CME Holdings Corp. gave assurance that its postponed P4.2-billion follow-on offering would still proceed before the year ends, targeting to set the offer period in the last week of November.

Donald Lim, DITO CME president and chief operating officer, told reporters in Makati on Tuesday evening that listing of the shares was scheduled for the first week of December.

Originally, the parent company of DITO Telecommunity (DITO Tel) wanted to conduct the sale of 1.95 billion primary common shares for P2.15 each from Sept. 26 to Oct. 2.

But potential investors requested to delay the offering to “further evaluate this investment opportunity,” according to the company led by Davao-based businessman Dennis Uy.

READ: DITO CME postpones P4.2B follow-on offer

The proceeds of the transaction are earmarked for the expansion plans of its telecommunication business, which recently reached 13 million subscribers.

“This is not just a number; it represents the trust and confidence that millions of Filipinos have placed in us. And it is just the beginning of what we intend to achieve in the coming years,” DITO Tel CEO Eric Alberto said.

Moving forward, he said they intend to reach 16 million subscribers by the end of 2024.

Alberto said they were also working on increasing their population coverage beyond the current 86.30 percent.

READ: DITO CME’s share sale OK’d; telco net loss up

Meanwhile, the third telco player also wants to secure up to P40.26 billion in fresh funding via private placements in the next five years or until the end of 2028. The company last year received P5.5 billion from selling common shares to Singapore-based third party investors.

On the debt side, DITO CME also secured last year a 15-year loan agreement from several creditors amounting to $3.9 billion (about P224.48 billion) in total. It drew P170.61 billion from these loan facilities last year to repay obligations and network construction-related payables.

The company earmarked P27 billion in capital expenditures for this year to reach geographically isolated and disadvantaged areas where there is lack of internet connectivity.