DITO SRO delay due to Omicron difficulties
After I posted on Friday that there was no context available for the 1-week delay in the DITO CME [DITO 5.67 5.18%] SRO, and that I didn’t expect to hear anything about the reasons for the delay in the media until the end of the offer period, Udenna Corp reached out to me directly to provide that missing context that I’d like to share now with MB readers.
According to Leo Venezuela, Udenna’s Investor Relations head, DITO apparently received several messages from shareholders that were unable to avail of the SRO shares due to Omicron, and was already encountering logistical trouble getting SRO kits out to certified shareholders in a timely fashion for the same reason.
Mr. Venezuela said that the decision to extend the offer period by one week was made to “allow our original loyal investor base to take up more shares at an attractive discount”.
MB BOTTOM-LINE
I don’t know any DITO certified shareholders, but the shareholders that I know who availed of the SRO shares through COL Financial [COL 4.14] were able to do so without any problem, but that’s probably because they were able to subscribe and pay for their allocations directly through COL’s platform.
That might not be the case for users with other brokers that do not provide an on-platform payment option.
There’s no doubt that Omicron is rampaging through Metro Manila, and that various response measures (and staffing limitations) probably make in-person payments much more difficult than normal.
Thank you to Mr. Venezuela for the timely information!
I hope DITO tries to include that kind of information proactively in the future to avoid information vacuums that inevitably get filled by the “bEcAuSe tHeRe aRe nO bUyErS” crowd.
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Merkado Barkada's opinions are provided for informational purposes only, and should not be considered a recommendation to buy or sell any particular stock. These daily articles are not updated with new information, so each investor must do his or her own due diligence before trading, as the facts and figures in each particular article may have changed.
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