Landbank offers to buy outremaining Philippine Dealing System stakeholders

MANILA, Philippines — State-run Land Bank of the Philippines has started to send offer letters to other shareholders of the Philippine Dealing System Holdings Corp. (PDSHC).

Landbank president and chief executive officer Alex Buenaventura said the bank has started to make an offer to purchase at P360 apiece the shares of other stakeholders whose share purchase agreements (SPA) with the Philippine Stock Exchange expired last March 31.

“LBP will now issue offer letters to all PDSHC shareholders who signed the lapsed share purchase agreement with PSE,” he said.

Like its offer with the Singapore Exchange Ltd. (SGX) sent last March 13, Buenaventura said the offer period for the purchase of these companies’ shares would last only for 30 days.

Buenaventura has announced earlier that the board of directors of Landbank has decided to pursue the acquisition of 66.67 percent of PDSHC’s common shares at P360 per share, payable in cash.

The Landbank chief said this is equivalent to 4.167 million shares, with a total value of P1.5 billion. He said the bank will source this amount from its existing capital.

PDSHC has a total outstanding shares of 6.25 million, with the PSE owning 20.98 percent, the Singapore Exchange Ltd. with 20 percent, the Bankers Association of the Philippines (BAP) – for itself and as trustee of its member-banks – at 13.26 percent, BAP – other member-banks – at 9.78 percent, Tata Consultancy Services Asia-Pacific Pte. Ltd. at eight percent, and Whistler Technologies Services Inc., with eight percent.