Petron raises $120M from private placement

MANILA, Philippines - Petron Corp., the country’s biggest oil refiner, has raised $120 million from the sale of shares through a private placement at P11.50 per share, the company said yesterday.

In a disclosure to the Philippine Stock Exchange, Petron said the Petron Corp. Employees Retirement Plan (PCERP), one of the company’s biggest shareholders, sold 470 million common shares.

“We advise that PCERP, a shareholder of Petron Corp., has agreed to sell 470 million common shares of the company at a price of P11.50 per share through the facilities of the Philippine Stock Exchange for settlement on April 1, 2014, pursuant to a placement agreement dated March 26, 2014,” Petron said in its disclosure.

PCERP tapped Maybank Kim Eng Securities Pte. Ltd., Merrill Lynch (Singapore) Pte. Ltd., Standard Chartered Securities (Singapore) Pte. Ltd. and UBS AG to act as placement agents for the transaction.

As of end-September last year, PCERP had a 14.79-percent stake in Petron, next to SEA Refinery Corp’s 50.1 percent and San Miguel Corp’s 18.16 percent.

PCERP was previously the second largest shareholder of Petron after SEA Refinery Corp. with a 50.1-percent stake. Food-to-infrastructure conglomerate San Miguel Corp. controls SEA Refinery as of January 2012.

PCERP had been selling its shares in Petron to increase the oil refiner’s public float.

The company posted a P5.1-billion consolidated net income in 2013 from 2012’s P1.78 billion on the back of higher sales volumes in its Philippine and Malaysian operations.

The company reported a 10-percent growth in sales volumes for the period, reaching 81.5 million barrels from 74.3 million barrels in 2012.

In its report, Petron said the increase can be mainly attributed to the full consolidation of Petron Malaysia in 2013 versus nine months the previous year.  As a result, revenues grew nine percent to P463.6 billion in 2013 from P424.8 billion in 2012, the company said.