SFA Semicon Philippines [SSP suspended] [link] notified the exchange that SSP’s parent company, SFA Semicon Co. (SSC), has obtained 99.41% of SSP’s outstanding stock as a result of its successful tender offer, and will now proceed with its voluntary delisting. According to its Tender Offer Report, SSC purchased 192,772,951 common shares of SSP at the tender offer price of P2.22/share, for a total spend of just below P428 million. SSP has proposed December 12 as its date of delisting.
MB bottom-line: SSC said that delisting SSP will “expedite the decision-making process” and allow it to be “more flexible in the implementation of corporate activities... and maintain the Company’s competitiveness”. SSC also said that the delisting gives shareholders a “reasonable exit opportunity” due to SSP’s “weak share price performance and the low trading volume of [SSP’s] shares”. It’s hard to see how a small public float impeded SSP’s ability to compete, but the emphatic response by the public float to the tender offer does suggest shareholders considered this to be a reasonable exit opportunity. That doesn’t mean that it was a good deal or a good transaction, just that it might have been the best of the worst options available.
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