THE top executives of Maynilad Water Services Inc. said the company’s initial public offering will be pushing through in a few weeks’ time after they clinched a deal with cornerstone investors who would take in more than half of the offered shares.
‘It’s going pretty well so far. I think they (cornerstone investors) should get between $500 million and $600 million (worth of shares),’ Maynilad Chairman Manuel V. Pangilinan said at the sidelines of the Finex Annual Conference last Friday.
Pangilinan said those shares may be priced at P15 per share. ‘That’s what we’re aiming for,’ he added.
Maynilad Vice-Chairman Isidro A. Consunji said the IPO seems a go, as he said there doesn’t seem to be any problem with the company going public.
People familiar with the transaction said the cornerstone investors will be taking up more than 50 percent of the offered shares equivalent to about 30 percent of Maynilad’s outstanding shares post-IPO.
The West Zone concessionaire is offering a total of 2.29 billion shares for up to P20 apiece. The deal consists of a primary offer of 1.66 billion new common shares, a preferential offer to First Pacific Co. of 24.9 million new shares; an upsize option of 354.7 million secondary shares of shares owned by existing shareholders and an overallotment option of up to 249.05 million shares.
Fully subscribed at P20 apiece, gross proceeds could reach P45.8 billion or $785 million. A price of P15 per share, meanwhile, will yield some P34.35 billion or $588 million.
The IPO will be priced on October 20 and the offering period will run from October 23 to October 29, with listing at the Philippine Stock Exchange set to November 7.
If it pushes through, Maynilad’s offering would only be the second IPO in the country so far, as jittery market conditions pulled back plans by other companies to go public.
Cornerstone investors will be led by the International Finance Corp. and the Asian Development Bank, according to the company’s prospectus.
The water firm also signed cornerstone investment agreements with 10 more international and domestic institutions led by the UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, acting through its ‘Mobilising Capital through Listed Products’ (Mobilist).
The international cornerstone investors are led by Mobilist and includes: abrdn Malaysia Sdn Bhd; Maven Investment Partners Ltd-Hong Kong Branch; Maybank Asset Management Singapore Pte. Ltd.; Robeco Switserland Ltd.; and, QRT Master Fund SPC-Torus Fund SP.
The domestic cornerstone investors, meanwhile, include BPI Asset Management and Trust Corp.; Metropolitan Bank and Trust Co.; BDO Capital and Investment Corp.; and, Security Bank Corp.-Trade and Asset Management Group.
Maynilad said each of the cornerstone investors have entered into a cornerstone investment agreement with the firm and the international underwriters or lead domestic underwriter to purchase offer shares at the determined offer price.
The IFC is investing up to $100 million at a subscription price of up to P15 per share while the ADB is considering an investment of $145 million also at the same price.
Robeco is investing up to $20 million with no indicated maximum price while Mobilist and BDO Capital are subscribing at up to P15 per share with no committed amount. No committed amount and/or maximum price have been disclosed for the other cornerstone investors.