Foreign fund to invest P415M in PH power firm

A Swiss-managed fund has decided to proceed with the planned initial capital infusion of P415 million into Greenergy Holdings Inc., the proceeds of which will be used to invest in a biomass power plant in the Visayas.

In a disclosure to the Philippine Stock Exchange on Monday, Greenergy Holdings said the company and Cleantech Projekgesellschaft mbH, a fund managed by the ThomasLloyd Global Asset Management (Switzerland) AG of Zurich, were now considering to sign the transaction documents by September 21.

Once the transactions have been made final, Cleantech will subscribe to 20.78 billion primary shares of Greenergy Holdings for an issue price of 2 centavos each, or a total subscription price of P415.5 million.

The transaction will include a provision of stock warrants in favor of Cleantech, which will allow it to subscribe to 10.5 billion primary shares of Greenergy Holdings at a strike price of 2 centavos a share within a year from the issuance of the warrant and an additional 10.5 billion primary shares for 3 centavos apiece within three years from the warrant’s issuance.

Greenergy Holdings earlier explained that it planned to use the proceeds from the infusion for its planned investment in the new 18-megawatt biomass power plant of San Carlos BioPower Inc. in the Visayas. The investment will be made through a new subsidiary that Greenergy will establish.

Data from the website of San Carlos BioPower showed that the 18-MW biomass facility will be a greenfield, stand-alone power plant that can supply baseload electricity to the local grid. Feedstock for the biomass facility will consist of sugarcane residues typically left in the fields after harvest and energy crops from dedicated plantations.