Philtread to restructure into a financial services firm

Philtread Holdings Corp. will restructure into a diversified financial services company following the programmed hike in ownership and control of the ATR-Kim Eng group in the former tire manufacturing company.

Philtread president Renato Leveriza said the company’s board of directors has approved the increase in the authorized capital stock from P300 million to P1.3 billion, to be funded by a preemptive rights offering of 500 million common shares and 100 million in detachable warrants.

The stocks rights can be subscribed at a ratio of five shares for every one share held while the warrants are available at the ratio of one warrant for every five shares. Both the rights shares and warrants carry an exercise price of P2 each.

Leveriza said the proceeds of the rights offer will be used to purchase at book value the entire outstanding stock of ATR-Kim Eng Capital Partners Inc., the largest non-bank investment house in the country.

In effect, this will consolidate the operations of the ATR-Kim Eng group in Philtread, which will incidentally be renamed at ATR-Kim Eng Financial Corp.

Philtread, formerly a tire manufacturing concern, transformed into an investment holding company last year following the entry of new investors led by ATR-Kim Eng. Aside from financial services, its investments also include a 10-percent stake in courier service LBC Global Ltd. and 60 percent in Sucat Land, the owner of the 9.7-hectare former site of the B.F. Goodrich tire factory in Muntinlupa.

ATR-Kim Eng has expanded into asset management with the acquisition of a major stake in TPG Corp., a leading pre-need company under The Professional Group, and ATR Professional Life Assurance, a life insurance company formerly known as GE Life.

The company is also in the final stages of acquiring All Asia Life Assurance Corp. and is also the local joint venture partner in Prebon Phils. Inc., an interbank foreign exchange and money broker firm.

ATR is a leading Philippine investment house and securities brokerage firm whose major shareholders include the Gokongwei group, A. Soriano Corp., National Bookstore, Marsman-Drysdale and US-based businesswoman Loida Nicolas-Lewis.

Established in 1993 as the local arm of the Hong Kong-based Peregrine Group, the company was acquired in 1998 by local investment bankers Ramon Arnaiz, Manuel Tordesillas and Lorenzo Roxas together with US-based private equity fund Gilbert Global Equity Partners Inc. In the same year, Singapore stockbrokerage firm Kim Eng Holdings took a 43.03 percent stake in the company.