MacroAsia sees P520 M via stock rights offer

MacroAsia Corp., the air transport services unit of the Lucio Tan group of companies, will raise about P520 million through a combination of stock rights and warrants offering mainly to finance a planned joint venture with Germany's Lufthansa AG.

In a disclosure to the Philippine Stock Exchange, the publicly-listed firm said stockholders of record as of April 12, 2000 will be entitled to subscribe to a 1:4 rights offering between April 24 to 28. That means eligible Macro-Asia shareholders can avail of one share for every four shares owned at an offer price of P2 per share.

A total 250 million common shares have been set aside for the stock rights offer while 500 million warrants, which are attached to and detachable from the stock rights shares, will also be made available. Two warrants for every one rights share subscribed will be offered at a price of 10 centavos.

A warrant allows its holders the right, but not the obligation, to subscribe to new shares at a set price during a specified period of time and traded separately in the securities market. Among those that have pending warrant issues include Belle Corp., Equitable Bank, Globe Telecom, Omico Corp., Philippine Seven Corp., Jollibee Foods Corp. and Waterfront Philippines Inc.

The MacroAsia warrants expire three years from the listing date (or April 2003) wherein these will be convertible on a one-to-one basis with common shares priced between P6 to P9 per share.

The proceeds of the two-pronged capital buildup will be used primarily as equity contribution (P470 million) in a joint venture project with aviation engineering and services firm Lufthansa Technik by the second quarter while the remaining P50 million will be split for the working capital needs of its two subsidiaries: MacroAsia-Eurest Catering Services and MacroAsia-Ogden Airport Services Corp.

MacroAsia handles the bulk of inflight catering and cargo handling services for both local and foreign airlines, led by Philippine Airlines, Air Philippines and Cebu Pacific.

At end-1999, the company has P2.21-billion worth of assets earning P36.71 million during the year.