Lucio Co firm goes by a new name

Businessman Lucio Co has moved to cement his status as one of the country’s top tycoons with the creation of a holding firm that will take over his group’s $1.82 billion in assets in different sectors.

Co’s interests in supermarkets, real estate and petroleum are now under publicly listed Alcorn Gold Resources Inc.

The holding firm’s shareholders on Tuesday approved the change in the company’s name to Cosco Capital Inc. to reflect the true nature of its new role.

Also approved Tuesday was the subscription of the Lucio L. Co Group to 4.987 billion shares in Cosco, to be taken out of the firm’s unissued authorized capital, at P15 per share. The shares were acquired at an aggregate subscription price of P74.81 billion worth of shares in several Co subsidiaries.

These were Puregold Price Club Inc., Ellimac Prime Holdings Inc., Go Fay & Co., Incorporada SVF Corporation, Nation Realty Inc., 118 Holdings Inc., Patagonia  Holdings Corp., Fertuna Holdings Corp., Premier Wine and Spirits Inc., Montosco Inc., Meritus Prime Distributions Inc. and Pure Petroleum Corp.

Only 51 percent of Puregold Price Club worth $1.123 billion was transferred to Cosco. Petroleum assets previously directly under Alcorn were spun off to a subsidiary wholly owned by Cosco.

Based on the firm’s computations, the assets transferred into Cosco were worth a total of $1.82 billion.

The changes will not be completed until the company gets approvals from the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Philippine Stock Exchange.

Once the transactions are finalized, Co will own 93 percent of Cosco’s stock, which would force the company to conduct a follow-on offering by next year to comply with the local bourse’s 10-percent minimum public float requirement.

“I’m very optimistic. If we are able to follow our schedule, we can have follow-on by the first quarter of 2013,” said Alcorn president Leonardo Dayao. “We will be selling overseas. We want to try to attract more foreign investors.”