Ramon Ang’s Eagle Cement to delist by month’s end

Billionaire Ramon Ang’s Eagle Cement will take its final flight as publicly-traded company by the end of February, just months shy of its sixth listing anniversary.

The Philippine Stock Exchange approved the company’s voluntary delisting on Feb. 28, which comes after the company was fully acquired by Ang-led conglomerate San Miguel Corp. Shares of the company have been suspended from trading since Dec. 14 after the acquisition caused its public float to fall below the minimum requirement of 10 percent.

“Please be informed that the exchange approved the petition for voluntary delisting filed by Eagle Cement Corp. and accordingly ordered the delisting of the company’s shares from the official registry of the exchange (electronic board and ticker) effective as of end of business on Feb. 28, 2023,” PSE president Ramon Monzon said in a stock exchange filing.

San Miguel earlier paid about P110 billion to buy nearly all of Eagle’s shares, including those held by minority stockholders.

The conglomerate explained it was buying Eagle to “increase its foothold in the cement business and provide the opportunity to implement its plan to expand its cement business.”

Eagle operates a fully-integrated cement plant in San IIdefonso, Bulacan, with an annual production capacity of 8.6 million metric tons, equivalent to 215 million bags per year. It controls an estimated market share of 29 percent in the combined areas of Metro Manila, Central Luzon and Southern Tagalog.

San Miguel owns North Cement Corp., which supplies cement in Central and Northern Luzon with a production capacity of 2.2 million tons of finished cement per year.

In 2021, NCC was merged with San Miguel Northern Cement Inc.

The conglomerate also owns Southern Concerte Industries Inc., whose cement grinding plant in Santa Cruz in Davao del Sur was expected to start commercial operations in the first semester of 2022.