Alliance Global [AGI 10.1 1.0%] [link] board votes to increase its stock buy-back budget by P3 billion. The original budget of P4 billion was established in Q4/21, and AGI has spent nearly P2.5 billion of that in buy-backs as of this writing.
MB Quick Takes: AGI has been one of the more aggressive companies in terms of its daily stock buy-back program, but despite the bid support, the stock is still down nearly 4% since the program was announced. The stock reached a 52-week low of P7.68/share back in October, approaching share price levels that AGI hasn’t seen since the months following the initial COVID crash and lockdown.
PH Resorts Group Holdings [PHR 0.8 2.5%] [link] shareholders vote to give the board of directors authority to raise money through an equity offering using “existing capital stock”. The gaming resort developer is owned by Dennis Uy through Udenna Corporation.
MB Quick Take: The 5-year price chart for PHR is a horror show; it’s down 88% since Christmas in 2017. While there have been some short and powerful “ups”, the “downs” have been more numerous and substantial, and the more you zoom out, the more clear the trend becomes. Mr. Uy sold some of PHR’s assets to Enrique Razon earlier this year to make ends meet, and it’s still not clear what PHR plans to do with its remaining licenses and developments. Maybe we’ll see another random BVI-registered company swoop out of nowhere to push more money into PHR, like what happened to DITO CME [DITO 3.0 1.0%] when it needed to make a quick private placement to avoid violating the minimum public float rule back in September of last year?
Globe [GLO 2150.0 0.5%] [link] closed a 750-tower tranche (P9.5 billion) of its cell tower sale-leaseback deal with Frontier Tower Associates Philippines Inc. (Frontier). GLO has now closed the sale of 1,550 out of the 3,529 towers sold as part of this deal with Frontier, which is itself part of a larger 5,709-tower sale initiative that was announced by GLO back in August.
MB Quick Take: The sale-leaseback move has been a relatively quick and effective way for GLO to recycle its infrastructure investment money. If I were a GLO shareholder, I’d be fairly pleased with the company’s creativity and prioritization. If I were a shareholder of DITO, I’d be wondering if there aren’t similar deals that the company could make to help plug some of the holes in the boat, and if there aren’t, I’d start to wonder what makes DITO’s towers less marketable.
First Philippine Holdings [FPH 60.6 0.2%] [link] signed an agreement to acquire a medical services company called Medical Services of America (MSA) for P500 million. According to FPH’s disclosure, MSA “operates a business supplying hospitals with medical device services, including medical personnel” with a particular specialization in cardio-pulmonary equipment and specialists. FPH has paid (or will pay) 20% as of the signing of this agreement, with 60% due on closing and the remaining 20% held back for post-closing adjustments.
MB Quick Take: FPH is quietly building out a high-end medical portfolio, including Asian Eye Institute and Philippine Impact Health. Instead of focusing on the capex-heavy hospitals segment, FPH is trying to get as much value as it can out of the products, equipment, and specialists needed for a few very specific, profitable tertiary care sub-segments.
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