Metrobank to raise P9B from sale of new shares

Metropolitan Bank & Trust Co., the country’s largest lender in terms of assets, has approved the issuance of as much as 203.6 million new shares to raise nearly P9 billion.

In a disclosure to the Philippine Stock Exchange, Metrobank said the shares, comprising eight percent of its outstanding authorized capital stock, will be sold at an offer price of plus or minus 10 percent of the stock’s 10-day weighted average price, although the price date has yet to be determined.

The terms of the share offering have yet to be fixed. Based on the stock’s closing price of P43.50 Thursday, Metrobank would raise about P8.86 billion from the share sale.

The bank said the additional share issue would bring to 1.836 billion the number of shares issued and outstanding, or about 73.4 percent of its authorized capital stock of 2.5 billion shares.

In another development, Metrobank said its board had elected Arthur Ty as the bank’s new president, replacing Antonio Abacan who was named chairman. Former bank chairman George S K Ty is now chairman of the Metrobank group of companies.

Metrobank reported a net income of P4.28 billion in 2005, down by 7.2 percent or P330 million from the previous year’s P4.61 billion. It posted a loss from assets amounting to P201.37 million after selling its bad loans. In 2004, the group posted a P1.34-billion gain from bad assets it had sold.

The bank also increased its provision for impairment of losses by 57.56 percent to P4.49 billion.

Despite the lower net income, the group managed to grow its net interest income by P6.37 billion to P19.86 billion in 2005. This represented 67.08 percent of the group’s total revenues.

The group’s other income fell to P9.75 billion from P12.4 billion a year earlier while other expenses increased by 10 percent to P18.86 billion from P17.15 billion.

For this year, the bank is looking at enhancing its cash management products and services as its cash management department embarks on an intensive sales and product development.

The bank also said it would continue to negotiate with possible investors for volume sales of bad assets. Metrobank plans to unload between P8 billion and P10 billion worth of non-performing assets this year.