PSE freezes trading of Keppel stocks

The Philippine Stock Exchange has temporarily suspended trading of the Singapore-based Keppel Philippines Holdings Inc. (KPHI) in line with the restructuring and realignment of the company and its subsidiaries’ businesses in the country.

This developed as the Securities and Exchange Commission approved last Thursday KPHI’s capital restructuring program which will involve the reduction of its listed shares by way of a decrease in its capital stock.

The trading freeze will last for nine trading days or until Jan. 4, 2001 to give the company, its brokers, and the Philippine Central Depository time to adjust the brokers’ portfolio to correspond to the reduced number of shares.

Under KPHI’s share reduction program, it will trim down its capital stock by returning part of the outstanding shares to its stockholders in the form of shares of Keppel Philippines Marine (KPM) and Keppel Philippine Properties Inc. (KPPI), two subsidiaries which are also listed at the PSE.

The scheme completes the Keppel Group’s reorganization and realignment of its Philippine businesses, particularly shipyard and property development, since 1998 when it started with the acquisition of Cebu Shipyard and Engineering Works, Subic Shipyard and Engineering Inc. and joint ventures SM-Keppel Land and Keppel Land/Swansville.

"The objective of this succeeding round of realignment/restructuring is for shares in the marine business to be housed under KPM, for the property-related investments to be owned by KPPI, and for the locally listed KPPI shares to be owned substantially by Keppel Land/Swansville," the company said.

It added that in this manner, "the group activity is further rationalized, allocation of resources more focused, tracking of earnings facilitated, and hopefully, shareholder values more easily enhanced/defended."