The Securities and Exchange Commission said Thursday it approved the P39.7-billion initial public offering of Cemex Holdings Philippines Inc., the local unit of Cemex of Mexico, one of the world’s largest cement manufacturers.
SEC said it also approved Golden Haven Memorial Park Inc.’s IPO worth P787 million. Golden Haven, the memorial park business of the Villar group, plans to sell 74.117 million common shares at an offer price of up to P10.62 per share.
“We are glad that more companies are tapping the capital market to fund their expansion. We will continue to assist newcomers in complying with the regulatory requirements to ease their entry into the capital markets,” SEC commissioner secretary Armando Pan Jr. said.
Documents filed with the SEC showed that Cemex Holdings planned to sell 2.032 billion common shares at an offer price of up to P17 per share to raise P34.56 billion in proceeds.
Another 304.94 million shares were alloted in case of oversubscription, which could increase total proceeds to P39.74 billion, making it among the largest IPOs in the country.
Documents showed Cemex Holdings aimed to use the proceeds to repay up to $504 million worth of short-term loans from related third party New Sunward Holdings B.V. which was used to acquire operating subsidiaries Apo Cement Corp. and Solid Cement Corp.
Documents also showed that of the 2.337 billion shares, up to 1.423 billion worth P24.2 billion would be sold to overseas investors while the remaining 609.89 million shares worth P10.36 billion would be set aside to domestic investors.
Citigroup Global Markets Limited, The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corp. Ltd., Singapore Branch and J.P. Morgan Securities Plc are the joint global coordinators and book runners while BDO Capital & Investment Corp. is the domestic lead underwriter.
Cemex Holdings said it planned to spend P2.4 billion for 2016 capital expenditures, including P600 million for maintenance of existing cement facilities.
Cemex Holdings is a newly formed subsidiary of Cemex Asian South East Corp., which is wholly-owned by Cemex España, S.A., which in turn is indirectly owned by Cemex, one of the largest cement companies in the world based on annual installed cement production capacity.
Cemex Holdings operates two cement plants in the Philippines with aggregate installed annual capacity of 5.7 million tons of cement as of end-2015.
Apo Cement plant in Cebu has an installed annual capacity of 3.8 million tons and serves customers in the Visayas and Northern Mindanao, while Solid Cement plant in Rizal has an installed annual capacity of 1.9 million tons.
Meanwhile, Golden Haven plans to use the IPO proceeds to fund acquisitions, growth and expansion strategies, such as increasing capacity of its existing cemeteries, columbarium facilities and funeral homes.