Quick takes from around the market
Chelsea Infrastructure [C 1.19] [link] will launch an online booking system for its new “Chelsea Travel” concept, which unifies the booking processes of three C subsidiaries, Starlite Ferries, Inc., the Supercat Fast Ferry Corporation, and Trans-Asia Shipping Lines, to provide an “easy, fast and stress-free booking experience”. Obvious “discovery” problems aside (the name “Chelsea” is dominated by Google results that have nothing to do with Dennis Uy’s passenger ferry businesses), the real challenge here is for C to make its roll-on/roll-off ferries segment profitable. It’s been a huge drag on profitability since COVID obliterated travel, and lost over P100 million last quarter alone. But it’s not like this segment was moving in the right direction before COVID struck: the last time C’s roll-on/roll-off segment was profitable was way back in 2017.
Solar Philippines NEC [SPNEC 1.61 1.23%] [link] released the preliminary terms and conditions of its stock rights offering, with updated dates for the transaction. Pricing will happen on August 18, with the ex-date set as August 22, a record date of August 25, an offer period from August 30 to September 5, and finally a listing date of September 15. All of these dates are tentative, SPNEC will sell 1,875,649,995 common shares, at a price of between P1.50 to P1.76, with an entitlement ratio of 1 SRO share for every 1.28 SPNEC shares owned. The only interesting thing here is to watch how SPNEC’s market price might move in, around, and (possibly?) out of that price range in the two weeks before the offering gets officially “priced”. As we saw with MREIT [MREIT 15.96 0.25%], changes in market valuation can have a huge impact on pricing.
SM Investments [SM 769.00 1.41%] [link] merger with Allfirst Equity Holdings, Inc. (Allfirst) was approved by the SEC on August 1. Allfirst is the parent company of Philippine Geothermal Production Company. The merger was facilitated through a share swap that saw SM issue and pay 21.5 million SM common shares to Allfirst shareholders, in exchange for the remaining 81% of Allfirst. The transaction brought SM’s ownership stake in Allfirst up to 100%. In its disclosure, SM said that it expects the merger to be “earnings-per-share accretive” to SM shareholders.
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Merkado Barkada's opinions are provided for informational purposes only, and should not be considered a recommendation to buy or sell any particular stock. These daily articles are not updated with new information, so each investor must do his or her own due diligence before trading, as the facts and figures in each particular article may have changed.
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