Century Properties taking over East Asia Power Resources

MANILA, Philippines -  Century Properties Inc., owned by the family of businessman Jose E.B. Antonio, is taking over publicly-listed East Asia Power Resources Corp. (EAPRC), a move widely expected to result in a backdoor listing for the real estate group.

Century Properties, the flagship of the Century Group focused on vertical developments, has long been attempting to list its shares on the bourse but timing and other external factors had prevented it from achieving this goal.

The STAR tried but failed to get a comment from Century Properties.

But in a disclosure to the Philippine Stock Exchange yesterday EAPRC said its 91.7-percent owner El Paso Philippines Holdings Co. has forged an agreement with Century Properties for the sale of 284.25 million issued and outstanding common and preferred shares in the power firm. The transaction also includes the direct purchase of 67.096 million shares in EAPRC.

EAPRC has 3.55 billion listed and outstanding shares at the stock market. In yesterday’s trading, its stock was among the top gainers, adding 48.57 percent to close at 52 centavos.

EAPRC said the deal would result in a change in ownership and control of the company.

 “Owing, however, to the conditional nature of the foregoing agreement, the company reserves the right to make a more detailed disclosure upon the execution of the final deeds implementing the foregoing transaction,” EARPC said. Formerly Northwest Holdings and Resources Corp., EAPRC owns and has operated, through its subsidiaries, power-generating facilities in Metro Manila that have a total installed generating capacity of 242 megawatts (MW).

Wholly-owned subsidiary East Asia Diesel Power Corp. owns two power barges with an aggregate capacity of 109 MW while Duracom Mobile Power Corp. (DMPC), a 40-percent owned unit of EADPC, owns and operates two power barges with a capacity of 133 MW.

All four power barges are located in Navotas, Manila and supplied power to the Manila Electric Co. (Meralco).

As of end-2009, EADPC’s and DMPC’s power plant barges remained shut down due to the inability to recover all of their operating costs.

EAPRC also owns, directly and indirectly, several inactive companies, namely, Sunrise Power Co., Inc., East Asia Global Management Ltd., East Asia Power Services Inc., East Asia Transmission and Distribution Corp. and First Engineering Utilities Service Corp.

On the other hand, the 24-year old Century Properties is the developer of the award-winning Essensa East Forbes in Fort Bonifacio. Its real estate portfolio and pipeline covers 63 buildings under management and development as well as current projects with over 42 million square and more than 10,000 residential, office and commercial units.