ACEX eyes P876 million follow-on offer

MANILA, Philippines — ACE Enexor Inc. (ACEX), the listed oil and gas exploration and production unit of the Ayala Group, plans to conduct a follow-on offering (FOO) of up to P876 million.

In a disclosure to the Philippine Stock Exchange yesterday, ACEX – which will change its name to ENEX Energy Corp. – secured approval from its executive committee to conduct a FOO of up to 74 million shares to be priced at P10 to P11.84 apiece.

At this price range, the company would be able to raise between P740 million and P876.16 million.

The executive committee has cleared the company to submit applications and other required documents to implement the FOO with the relevant regulators.

ACEX was also tasked to appoint transaction advisors, including the joint bookrunners and lead underwriters, counsels, and auditors for the review of financial statements, and legal counsels for the preparation of various documents for the FOO.

The executive committee also authorized ACEX chairman Eric Francia, president Rolando Paulino and CFO Maria Corazon Dizon to determine the terms and conditions – including the final size, price and schedule – of the proposed FOO.

ACEX is conducting a stock right offering (SRO) and FOO to comply with the minimum public ownership requirements (MPO) set by the PSE after a property-for-share swap with ACEN Corp.

The transaction will allow ACEN to spin off its thermal assets to become a 100 percent renewables company by 2025, and ACEX to become the energy transition platform of the ACEN group.

Under the property-for-share swap, ACEN will assign its 100 percent equity in five project companies – valued at P3.39 billion – in exchange for 339.076 million primary shares to be issued by ACEX at P10 per share.

These companies are Palawan 55 Exploration and Production Corp., Bulacan Power Generation Corp., One Subic Power Generation Corp., CIP II Power Corp., and Ingrid3 Power Corp.

Palawan55 is the operator and holder of Service Contract (SC) 55, which covers a 900,000-hectare service area offshore west Palawan.

CIP II and BPGC, respectively, own and operate a 21-megawatt (MW) diesel plant in Bacnotan, La Union and a 52-MW diesel plant in Norzagaray, Bulacan, while OSPGC leases the 116 MW diesel plant in Subic Bay Freeport.

Meanwhile, Ingrid3 plandls to invest P25 billion to put up a 1,200-MW gas turbine power facility in Batangas City which is aimed at serving the power grid’s mid-merit and peaking requirements.