MANILA, Philippines — SP New Energy Corp. (SPNEC) plans to undertake more private placements.
“We are open to further broadening SPNEC’s shareholder base, to build a more widely-held company and accelerate the development of solar in the Philippines,” said Solar Philippines founder Leandro Leviste.
This comes after Ayala Corp.’s energy unit ACEN Corp. acquired a five percent stake in SPNEC from Solar Philippines as partial pre-payment of a P1 billion loan between ACEN and Solar Philippines in 2021.
“This is among several private placements that Solar Philippines has been planning, to broaden SPNEC’s shareholder base and enable its asset-for-share swap,” SPNEC said in a disclosure yesterday.
SPNEC plans to increase its public float by another 2.1 billion shares to achieve at least 20 percent public float upon the completion of its share swap.
The block sale of 500 million shares in SPNEC was executed between ACEN and SP on Jan. 25 2023 based on the previous day’s closing price of P1.32 per share, for a transaction value of P660 million.
As part of its share swap, SPNEC will issue 24.37 billion shares to Solar Philippines at P2.50 per share, on top of the company’s existing 10 billion shares.
As a result, SPNEC will have 34.37 billion shares outstanding, which will require the public to own at least 6.87 billion shares to achieve at least 20 percent public float. With 4.75 billion shares held by the public after the block sale to ACEN, SPNEC would need to increase its public float by at least another 2.12 billion shares.
“We have been working on transactions that will enable our share swap. We thank our shareholders for supporting our company and are committed to completing our share swap,” Leviste said.
Last month, Solar Philippines said it was exploring various options to support its project developments, including selling equity to partners at SPNEC.
At present, the Leviste-led company has joint ventures with several other power companies including Korea Electric Power Corp. (KEPCO), which is in the process of exiting its Philippine fossil fuel investments in the first half.
KEPCO will stay in the Philippines through its existing joint venture with Solar Philippines and plans to make further investments in renewable energy.
“We are open to further broadening SPNEC’s shareholder base, to build a more widely-held company and accelerate the development of solar in the Philippines,” Leviste said.