Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, June 24) — Major oil firm Petron Corp. raised ₱20 billion from its fresh offering of preferred shares, it announced on Monday.
The listed company said in a disclosure that their planned share sale was met with strong demand, which allowed Petron to issue 20 million of perpetual preferred shares — five million higher than the original target.
Petron said the fresh capital will be used to pay dividends for previously issued preferred shares, repay outstanding short-term loans and for “general corporate purposes.”
Perpetual shares mean that these securities do not have a final maturity date, but may be sold in the secondary market. The shares do not come with voting rights during the company’s stockholders’ meetings, as well as rights to any other dividends apart from the rate provided in the final prospectus released by Petron in May.
Last month, the Securities and Exchange Commission approved Petron’s plan to float 15 million preferred shares, with the option to add five million. Each unit is priced ₱1,000.
Petron completed the offering on June 18. having issued 13.403 million Series 3A preferred shares with a 6.8713 percent annual dividend rate. The remaining 6.597 million shares are classified as Series 3B, which will earn 7.1383 percent interest yearly.
The country’s biggest oil refinery tapped BDO Capital & Investment Corp., BPI Capital Corp., China Bank Capital Corp., and PNB Capital and Investment Corp. as joint issue managers, lead underwriters and bookrunners for the transaction.
Petron will now have 30 million total preferred shares, with the newest batch scheduled to be listed on the main board of the Philippine Stock Exchange by Tuesday.
Petron booked a consolidated net income of ₱1.3 billion in the first quarter, just a fourth of the ₱5.8 billion it made during the same period in 2018 due to higher fuel taxes and rising oil prices.
