Roxas Group selling P2.5-B shares to finance expansion

MANILA, Philippines - Roxas & Co. Inc. (RCI), the investment holding company of the Roxas Group, intends to raise as much as P2.5 billion this year from a share sale to beef up its real estate business while additional funds are also being eyed to support the expansion of its sugar-related business.

During the firm’s annual stockholders meeting yesterday, RCI chairman Pedro E. Roxas said the company is investing at least P1.5 billion to strengthen its property portfolio in its 2015 fiscal year ending September.

He said the amount would be spent for the five franchised Go Hotels in Metro Manila, Anya Resort and Residences project in Tagaytay, and two other real estate projects in Batangas and in Metro Manila.

“We’re targeting to raise at least P2 billion to P2.5 billion essentially to fund these capital expenditures we mentioned,” RCI executive vice president and chief finance officer Armando Escobar said.

He said the fundraising activity would involve the sale of a combination of preferred and common shares.

“We recently engaged BPI Capital for us to raise at least P2 billion in the next 12 months. This will be done on a staggered basis,” Escobar said.

“We are now finalizing the data and coming up with the shortlist of investors where we will be raising the equity. So we hope to start talking to the investors sometime in the second quarter and be able to fully raise the funds before the end of the year,” he added.

Likewise, RCI is also planning to sell a portion of its stake in subsidiary Roxas Holdings Inc. (RHI), one of the country’s largest sugar refiner, to Hong Kong-based conglomerate First Pacific Co. Ltd.

Roxas said potential proceeds of the sale would be used to further improve RHI’s operations.

“We’re in discussions and we hope to come up with something fairly soon. We’re in discussions for the sale of new shares or treasury shares of RHI to First Pacific and with that, that would mean new money to the company,” Roxas said.