Highlands Prime has successful listing

Highlands Prime Leisure Properties Inc. (HPLPI), the spin-off property unit of Belle Corp., became the third listing at the Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE) this year as its shares started trading yesterday.

A total of over 1.646 billion of its common shares, with par value of P1, were listed at the second board of the PSE, out of which nearly 450 million shares were sold, raising about P957 million through an initial public offering (IPO).

From an IPO price of P2.13 per share, HPLPI stocks opened slightly higher at P2.16 – its highest during the day. In intra-day trading, the issue fell to a low of P2.10 before settling to close at P2.14, one centavo higher than its offer price.

Although the stocks was among the most heavily traded issues yesterday, only about 6.12 million HPLPI shares changed hands, with a total value of P13.04 million.

Out of the 450 million shares offered, 93,896,714 shares were sold on a primary basis while 355,352,220 shares were offered on a secondary basis. The latter are the shares owned by Belle Corp., which represent 15 percent of its interest in HPLPI.

With the offering, Belle will be left with a 34-percent stake in the company while majority ownership will be in the hands of retail magnate Henry Sy’s SM Investments Corp., the assignee of Sysmart Corp. for the acquisition of a 51-percent block.

In July last year, Sysmart entered into a memorandum of agreement with Belle for the purchase of the controlling shareholdings for approximately P2.5 billion. Sy, who also owns 20 percent of Belle, had purchased the shares at P2.33 each.

HPLPI was spun-off early last year as part of Belle’s corporate restructuring aimed at wiping out its heavy debt load of over P6.3 billion. Some P2.1 billion are loans from local sources while the bulk, worth an equivalent $86.5 million, are foreign indebtedness, mostly on the issuance of dollar-denominated floating rate notes (FRNs).

As a new company, HPLPI is debt-free and will have ownership of core property assets made up of undeveloped land, subdivision lots and finished residential units located in Tagaytay Highlands in Cavite and Tagaytay Midlands in Batangas with a combined fair market value estimated at P7.715 billion.

In addition to 534 hectares of landbank in Tagaytay, Calamba in Laguna and Talisay and Tanauan towns in Batangas which can be developed into high-end residential and/or leisure property projects, HPLPI will be sourcing revenues from the sale of 25 completed residential units and 71 developed subdivision lots in various projects undertaken by Belle.

These include Pinecrest Village, The Villas, The Belle View, The Woodlands, Lakeview Log Home, The Alta Mira and Lakeview Heights.– Conrado Diaz Jr.