METROPOLITAN Bank & Trust Co., the second-largest lender in terms of assets, will conduct a stock rights offering of up to 819,827,214 common shares equivalent to the remaining unissued shares from the bank’s authorized capital stock.
The bank said in a disclosure to the stock exchange Wednesday its board approved the plan on Jan. 17, 2018. The bank did not provide further details on the issuance, including the offer price, the start and end of the offering period.
“Timing and size of the transaction are subject to other details such as the offer price and are subject to receipt of regulatory approvals as well as market and other conditions,” it said.
“The bank believes that the robust growth of the Philippines will continue to support the prospects for accelerated loan expansion across the various segments of the economy. Metrobank seeks to capitalize on the growth opportunities of large cap
corporates and especially in its core franchise, the middle market and small to medium enterprises (SME) segments,” the bank said.
It said rising per capita levels also bode well for the potential in the growing consumer space, specifically credit cards, auto loans and home mortgage.
Metrobank over the last six quarters Metrobank has consistently delivered over 20-percent loan growth, faster than the industry average. The bank’s total asset base is currently the second largest amongst Philippines banks, having expanded 16 percent to P2 trillion as of Sept. 30, 2017.
The lender said the capital-raising exercise was expected to enable the bank to pursue these business prospects to sustain the loan growth momentum, leveraging on the bank’s sales and distribution network that rapidly expanded in the preceding years.
“To that end, the bank intends to focus on enhancing customer experience through digitization initiatives and branch efficiencies,” it said.
The bank said it would use a portion of the stock rights offering proceeds for the acquisition of the remaining 20-percent equity stake in Metrobank Card Corp.