Phoenix Petroleum sells P807 M worth of treasury shares

MANILA, Philippines — Phoenix Petroleum raised P807 million yesterday from the sale of treasury shares, a move which it said would reduce its existing debt.

In a disclosure to the Philippine Stock Exchange yesterday, Phoenix said it sold 70,193,400 treasury shares at P11.50 per share.

“The selling price of P11.50 per share is higher than the closing price of P11.42 per share as of Oct. 27 and slightly lower than the 30 day VWAP (volume weighted average price) of P11.657 per share,” it said.

This allowed the oil firm to raise P807.22 million from the sale.

The treasury shares were accumulated through the company’s buyback program, Phoenix vice president for external affairs Raymond Zorilla said in a text message.

“The buyback program enables the company to buy back its own common shares from the market. This shows how strong management believes in the company,” he said. “All we bought automatically became treasury shares.”

“Through the buyback program, we bought back our own shares and accumulated 70.19 million shares. With board approval now, we sold all the shares we bought back at P11.50 per share,” he said.

Phoenix’s buyback scheme started in May 2016 initially with up to P250 million worth of shares and was later increased up to P750 million worth of shares.

With the treasury share sale, Phoenix will be able to bring down its debts incurred within the year.

“The proceeds of the sale shall be used to retire existing debt that has increased due to the acquisitions and investments made by the company since the start of the year,” it said.

Last May, Phoenix ventured into the liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) retailing business following its acquisition of the local unit of Malaysian oil and gas company Petronas Dagangan Bhd. (PDB), which is Petronas  Energy Philippines Inc. (PEPI) and its affiliate Duta Inc.

PEPI has been engaged in the business of selling Petronas LPG in cylinders for household and commercial use as well as LPG in bulk for industrial use and autogas, an environmentally-friendly alternative fuel for vehicles, for over 20 years in the country.