CREIT to list on February 22

MANILA, Philippines — Citicore Energy REIT Corp. (CREIT) will finally proceed with its P6.4 billion initial public offering on Tuesday (Feb. 22) after moving it twice last week due to “strong demand.”

CREIT was supposed to debut on the Philippine Stock Exchange last Feb. 17, but this was moved to Feb. 18.

The company has tapped Unicapital Inc., BDO Capital and Investment Corp., PNB Capital and Investment Corp., Investment & Capital Corp. of the Philippines (ICCP), CLSA Limited and CIMB Investment Bank Bhd (International Bookrunners) as its underwriters for the IPO.

The strong demand for the IPO unexpectedly slowed down the typical processing time.

CREIT completed its offer period last Feb. 8, with over-subscriptions across all tranches – institutional, trading participants, and local small investors (LSI).

The LSI tranche generated an oversubscription level of 124.09 percent, receiving total demand of 270.7 million shares from the 218.2 million shares allocated.

Oliver Tan, president and CEO of CREIT, said the company is grateful for the overwhelming reception of investors, owing also to the extensive market education conducted, which further increased appreciation for REITs as a new asset class.

The projected dividend yield, based on projected 2022 and 2023 earnings, is seven percent and 7.4 percent, respectively, which Tan said is the highest among the existing REITs.

Post-offer, CREIT also plans to implement a dividend payout of at least 95 percent of its distributable income for the preceding year. This is subject to availability of unrestricted retained earnings and compliance with applicable laws, even as it is still a premium over the required dividend payout of at least 90 percent.

Proponents said CREIT’s IPO received orders from local and international institutions and more than 5,000 retail investors.

“The underwriters nonetheless exerted efforts to distribute the shares as widely as possible to a broad investor base to hopefully result in better liquidity and more active trading,” said Pamela Louise Victoriano, Unicapital Inc.’s first vice president for Corporate Finance.

CREIT’s offering comprised 2.5 billion common shares at an offer price of P2.55 per common share.