Ayala Corp [AC 665.00, down 4.5%; 302% avgVol] [link] shares were down as much as 5.7% yesterday on news that Mitsubishi Corp. has started a process to sell 8.6 million AC common shares at a 7% to 9% discount to Wednesday’s P696/share close. This will be the third time in seven years that Mitsubishi has sold a portion of its AC stake to raise capital. In March 2017, Mitsubishi sold 8.5 million shares at P934/share. It sold 13 million shares in January 2019 at P900/share.
MB bottom-line: While it’s not clear exactly why Mitsubishi has plans to sell this most recent batch of its AC stake, it’s probably fair to note that the sale would clearly be part of a long-term plan by Mitsubishi to reduce its AC exposure. Was this sale more about raising money or getting out of AC by selling into a little hopium pump? Maybe the company’s AC stake was just on the wrong end of a cold Excel sort-descending.
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