Golden Haven marks stock market debut

MANILA, Philippines – The Villar family’s Golden Haven Memorial Park Inc. will brave the market today as it becomes the first company to list in the local bourse this year.

Analysts expect positive investor reception for the memorial park developer’s stock debut given the market’s craving for an initial public offering (IPO).

“Demand may be brisk for an IPO especially with the first offering for this year. The offering is likewise too small and can easily be chalked up by investors,” said Unicapital Securities in a recent commentary.

Golden Haven will list its shares today at P10.50 each, trading under the symbol HVN.

Golden Haven raised up to P787 million through the IPO by offering 74.12 million primary common shares at P10.50 per piece.

In its final prospectus, Golden Haven said it intends to utilize up to P231.84 million of the estimated net offer proceeds to fund development activities for the undeveloped land areas located within its memorial parks such as Golden Haven Cebu Park, Golden Haven Iloilo Park, Golden Haven Cagayan de Oro Park,  Golden Haven Zamboanga Park and Golden Haven Bulacan Park.

Furthermore, the company has agreed to acquire two existing memorial parks with an aggregate land areas of 8.2 hectares located in the provinces of Pampanga and Nueva Vizcaya. These memorial parks have been subdivided into approximately 24,400 memorial lots.

In its report, Unicapital also noted that the country’s growing population translates to higher death count.

“The Philippine crude death rate or the average number of deaths per 1,000 population at mid-year, was 6.13 in 2010 and 4.92 by 2014. According to the Department of Health, the leading causes of death are diseases of the heart, disease of the vascular system, pneumonias, malignant neoplasms/cancers, all forms of tuberculosis, accidents, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and allied conditions, diabetes mellitus, nephritis/nephritic syndrome and other diseases of the respiratory system. Notwithstanding declining crude mortality rate, given the population growth, the number of deaths per year is expected to increase. In 2015, the Philippines’ population reached 102.2 million,” it noted.