SEC approves Viva Coms’ P1.85-B IPO

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has approved the planned P1.85-billion initial public offering (IPO) of film and entertainment outfit Viva Communications Inc.

Viva plans to sell 142.85 million shares to the public at a price ranging from P9.72 to P12.93 per share. Of the total shares to be offered, 92.86 million are primary shares while 49.999 million are secondary shares.

The company expects to receive P1.2 billion out of the total proceeds from the offering which the company plans to use to beef up the programming of its cable channels and local film production.    

Other proceeds from the offering will be used to acquire foreign movie acquisition, digitization and restoration of the film library, acquisition of equipment necessary for archiving purposes and fund content.         

BDO Capital & Investment Corp. is the lead underwriter for the IPO while Abacus Capital & Investment Corp. is the co-lead underwriter.     

The offering is expected to run from Jan. 14 to 21 while the listing of shares has been tentatively set on Jan. 25.

Viva also intends to produce six films in the first quarter of next year, two of which shall be co-produced with Star Cinema Productions with a budget of about P34 million per film.  

For the other four films, the company has allotted around P21.5 million. 

For the first half of 2008, Viva is setting aside P60 million for the production of 10 concerts and P20 million for training and development of its artists/talents. 

Viva is eyeing a net profit of P330 million in 2008 from a projected net income of P153 million this year.

In the 10 months ending October this year, Viva posted a net income of P121.42 million or more than double the P60.93 million net earnings reported for the full year of 2006. 

Revenues amounted to P722.13 million.            

Viva was formed in 1981 to primarily engage in movie production.

In 2007, the company was reorganized and renamed Viva Communication to solidify its leading position in the Filipino content creation industry and to seize opportunities brought about by the strong demand for Filipino content and the challenges from the vertical and horizontal expansion of distribution modes for content.

The company has produced about 800 films and television shows, several of which have been box office hits and have won international and local awards.   

Viva has likewise released a total of 139 foreign films since it started in 2000.   

It owns the biggest library of Filipino entertainment content, which it acquired over a period of 20 years and is composed of more than 2,400 movies.   

Viva currently provides films for ABS-CBN, IBC-13, Cinema One, Star TV Group, Astro Asia Pacific, Mediaquest and PBO.