City of Dreams operator completes tender offer

MANILA, Philippines — MCO Philippines Investments has completed its tender offer for shares of Melco Resorts and Entertainment Philippines Corp. last month.

MCO Investments is the major shareholder of City of Dreams operator MRP.

MRP said a total of 1.4 billion out of the 1.6 billion common shares held by the public and other shareholders were tendered to MCO Investments at a price of P7.25 per share.

After the tendered shares are crossed at the Philippine Stock Exchange on Dec. 10, MCO Investments is expected to own 5.5 billion MRP common shares, representing approximately 96.1 percent of the outstanding capital stock of MRP.

The tender offer, which ran from Oct. 31 to Nov. 29,was supposed to be part of MRP’s plan to voluntarily delist from the PSE.

However, MRP withdrew its petition for voluntary delisting filed last September.

MRP wanted to delist because its listed status in recent years failed to contribute to its ability to raise funds despite considerable efforts and expenses being incurred to maintain such listed status.

It did not cite the reason for the withdrawal of the voluntary delisting petition, but several shareholders questioned MRP’s move of MRP to voluntarily delist from the stock exchange as they deemed the tender offer price too low.

MRP maintained that its financial advisor FTI Consulting Philippines gave a fair valuation of the tender offer price.

The tender offer amounted to P11.2 billion.