URC acquires more Robinsons Land shares

Universal Robina Corp. (URC), the food manufacturing unit of Gokongwei holding firm JG Summit Holdings Inc., is acquiring additional shares of affiliate Robinsons Land Corp. (RLC).

In a disclosure to the Philippine Stock Exchange, URC said it had received approval from its board to purchase from Express Holdings Inc. a total of 293.62 million shares in RLC.

No other details were provided by URC but based on RLC’s closing price of P10.75 per share Thursday, the transaction is worth P3.16 billion.

RLC is offering up to 932 million shares to both local and international institutional investors in line with efforts to boost trading liquidity. The offering is expected to generate $220 million in proceeds.

The shares will be sold at a price to be computed on the basis of the volume weighted average trading price of the common shares for the 10 trading days immediately preceding the pricing date of said offering, subject to a discount of up to 10 percent.

The Gokongwei group wants to raise RLC’s minimum public float to as much as 40 percent from the current seven percent.

Macquarie Securities (Asia) Pte. Ltd was tapped as financial adviser for the offering.

Parent company JG Summit holds 74 percent of RLC, which operates shopping malls and develops high-rise residential and office condominiums and residential communities. About 19 percent of the property concern is held by URC.

RLC has set aside P7 billion this year for the development of new malls, office buildings for business process outsourcing firms, residential projects, and landbanking activities.

Bulk of the programmed capital budget or about P3.5 billion will go to the construction of residential and office buildings while P2 billion has been set aside for acquisition of properties for future development.

Funding will come from internally generated cash, the planned share offering, and possibly new borrowings.

RLC is building seven new malls in Davao, Tagaytay, Dumaguete, Sucat, Manila, Pangasinan, and General Santos. These new malls are expected to be completed next year or in 2008.