Tubig Pilipinas eyes P1.8 billion from follow-on share offer

MANILA, Philippines — Listed water infrastructure and utility company Tubig Pilipinas Holdings Inc. is planning a fundraising initiative next year to finance its projects.

Tubig Pilipinas president Ryan Yapkianwee told reporters the company is eyeing to raise P1.8 billion from a follow-on share offering as early as January next year.

He said funding would be used to raise fresh capital to complete ongoing and pipelined projects and acquire assets from other companies.

Yapkianwee said this would enable the company to continue funding its Bataan and Cebu projects.

The company recently signed a 25-year joint venture agreement with the Bataan Freeport Authority to improve, operate and expand the freeport’s water supply and sewerage systems.

It is also looking to complete a bulk water project in Talisay City, Cebu that will deliver about 50 million liters per day to the local community.

Yapkianwee said they had initially scheduled the follow-on offering last month but their advisors argued that they should reschedule the listing due to the widely anticipated initial public offering of GCash’s parent company Mynt Inc.

“When that happened, we had some advisors that mentioned to us that it might be a good idea to push it back a bit and do it in January,” he added.

Yapkianwee added that the follow-on offering would also allow Tubig Pilipinas to comply with the 20 percent public float required by regulators.

“We’re mandated to do a follow-on offering now so that we can get to the 20 percent minimum public float,” he said.

Formerly Coal Asia Holdings Inc., the new name was adopted following a P6.6 billion backdoor listing, which transferred the operating business and portfolio of Tubig Pilipinas.