PhilWeb taking in new investors

Gaming firm PhilWeb Corp. is set to welcome the entry of new investors that would inject fresh cash into the company that sees its earnings reaching record highs this year.

In a disclosure, the company said its fully-owned subsidiary, PhilWeb Casino Corp. (PCC), had tapped UBS AG and Religare Capital Markets in Hong Kong to serve as placement agents for 137.5 million shares in the parent firm.

The shares were priced at P15 each, bringing the total value of the block to P2.06 billion. The shares to be sold by PCC refer to the 27-percent stake in PhilWeb that ePLDT, a unit of the country’s largest phone firm, seeks to sell.

The PLDT unit announced its divestment from PhilWeb in July.  This will be done in four tranches of 93,457,944 shares each at P10.70 per share, for a total of P4.37 billion.

The first block of shares was acquired by PhilWeb in July. The responsibility to buy back the next three blocks of shares was transferred to PCC, the company announced on Thursday.

“PCC, on behalf of PhilWeb, accelerated the acquisition of the second tranche of shares from ePLDT,” the disclosure read. “Under the share purchase agreement, the acquisition of the second tranche of shares was scheduled to be made on Dec. 12,” it said.

“The sale will be transacted at the facilities of the exchange as soon as the approval for the special block sale is obtained,” the company said.

PCC said the sale of the shares to qualified bidders would be transacted at the local bourse as soon as the closing of the “aforementioned transactions of PCC with the PhilWeb and ePLDT (are) completed.”

PCC said it was expecting to make a profit from the sale of the shares that ePLDT used to own to the new investors that placement agents were expected to find.