Emperador board approves secondary listing on Singapore Stock Exchange

Emperador's [EMP 16.00 12.83%] board, chaired by Andrew Tan, approved the company’s plan to pursue a secondary listing on the Singapore Exchange (SGX) by way of introduction. EMP’s press release did not mention any of the juicy details, like the number of shares to be listed, the estimated price of the listing, or any key dates in the process.

Earlier reporting on EMP’s plan to pursue this listing said that the company hoped to raise up to P36.9 billion and that it aimed to execute the listing before the end of the year. EMP clarified certain points in the article that contained that information but did not attempt to clarify anything about that info specifically. According to Andrew Tan, no “PSE-primary” company has ever successfully listed a secondary offering on the SGX.

MB BOTTOM-LINE

We’re missing a ton of details on what this deal could look like, so it’s hard to know yet just how good this could be for EMP investors. That didn’t stop investors from pumping EMP almost 13% yesterday, even after the stock had already rallied more than 16% on Monday. The interesting bit to me is the “by way of introduction” part. On the PSE, as we experienced last year with Altus Property Ventures [APVI 17.90 0.11%], that kind of offering comes with its own quirks that can be quite exchange-dependent.

With a regular IPO, EMP would set the offer price after a pretty detailed and intensive “book-building process” with potential anchor investors, with the help of an underwriter and capital advisors. In contrast, an offering by way of the introduction allows EMP to skip all of that delicious price discovery under the idea that, since the securities are already traded on another exchange, the price discovery part has already been done.

EMP will still need to produce a prospectus, but it should be able to set its listing price with just a fair opinion. There’s a lot more information to come on this story, but in the meantime, would anyone with experience trading “by way of introduction” offerings on the SGX mind sharing any of their insights with me? Uncharted territory for MB!

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