East Asia Power to increase capital to P10B

MANILA, Philippines - East Asia Power Corp., which will be renamed Century Properties Group Inc., is raising its capitalization to P10 billion from P6 billion to facilitate a share swap involving four companies owned by the family of businessman Jose E.B. Antonio.

With this, Century Properties effectively joins the roster of companies being traded on the local bourse through a backdoor listing.

Backdoor listing is a process in which a company not listed on an exchange simply acquires and merges with a listed firm, thus skipping a long and complicated initial public offering (IPO).

Century Properties, the flagship of the Century Group, completed last month a deal to acquire 93.59 percent of energy holding firm East Asia for P127.4 million. The shares were acquired from private shareholder El Paso Philippines Energy Co. Inc.

In a disclosure to the stock exchange, East Asia said Century Properties would subscribe to the capital increase in exchange for all of the property firm’s shares in subsidiaries Century Properties Management, Century Communities, Century Limitless and Century Development.

Century Properties would subscribe for the shares at P1 per common share or at an aggregate price equivalent to the aggregate book value of Century Properties’ shares in the four corporations as of July 31 this year.

East Asia said the placing and subscription transaction, which would involve the sale by Century Properties of up to 3.33 billion common shares and its subscription to the same number of shares sold, was intended to meet the 10 percent minimum public ownership rule.

East Asia said it plans to list these shares on the Philippine Stock Exchange at a practicable future date.

In addition, East Asia approved a resolution to undergo an equity restructuring and a decrease in capital stock to wipe out its accumulated deficit as of July 31 this year.

The company’s board likewise approved the amendment of its articles of incorporation to change its primary and secondary purposes to include real estate development.

Formerly Northwest Holdings and Resources Corp., East Asia owns and has operated, through its subsidiaries, power generating facilities in Metro Manila that have a total installed generating capacity of 242 megawatts.

The 24-year old Century Properties is the developer of the posh Essensa East Forbes in Fort Bonifacio and the Pacific Star Building.