Villar power firm hitches on to IPO bandwagon; eyes P3.2 billion

MANILA, Philippines — The Villar Group is again raising money from the stock market after the listing of VistaREIT Inc., Vista Land & Lifescape Inc.’s real estate investment trust (REIT), in June.

This time, Manuel Paolo Villar, the eldest son of tycoon Manuel Villar Jr., said his power firm will join the REIT industry with a P3.2-billion initial public offering for Premiere Island Power REIT Corp. (PremiereREIT) targeted for listing in November.

Paolo is the president and CEO of Vista Land & Lifescapes Inc.

PremiereREIT filed a registration statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission last week. The company is a power and infrastructure real estate investment trust sponsored by Prime Asset Ventures Inc. (PAVI) subsidiaries.

PremiereREIT will offer up to 1.4 billion secondary common shares at a maximum offer price of P2 per share with an over-allotment option of up to 210 million secondary common shares.

At present, PremiereREIT’s property portfolio consists of land, land rights, key power plant assets and other ancillary infrastructure being leased to and utilized by the sponsors for their power generation operations.

Key metrics of properties include a weighted average lease expiry of 9.24 years and a total generating capacity of 21.27 megawatts, PremiereREIT said in its filing.

Moving forward, PremiereREIT said it aims to become a leading diversified power and infrastructure REIT in the country in terms of portfolio, profitability, growth, sustainability and dividend yield.

PremiereREIT also plans to include greener, renewable and sustainable energy to its portfolio of traditional energy assets which provide social and missionary electrification in underserved areas.

PremiereREIT has tapped China Bank Capital Corp, as sole issue manager and underwriter.

In April, the elder Villar said he also plans to list the group’s coffee business, known primarily as The Coffee Project, which would be a food and beverage play in an IPO  targeted to raise over P1 billion.

He intends to list the coffee business before the end of the year, targeting to expand the number of coffee stores to close to 200 from around 100 stores at present.

Last year, Villar listed AllDay Marts Inc, the operator of AllDay Supermarkets, that generated P4.52 billion in IPO proceeds.