Fruit grower and canner Del Monte Pacific Ltd. reduced the size of its planned preferred shares offering to $150 million from an initial $360 million.
Del Monte said in a registration statement filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission it would offer 15 million preferred shares at $10 per share, which would raise $150 million in proceeds.
Another 10 million preferred shares were set aside for oversubscription which could potentially generate another $100 million in fresh capital if exercised and could boost total proceeds to $250 million.
Meanwhile, Del Monte also placed under shelf registration 11 million preferred shares which it planned to issue within a period of three years from the effective date of the registration statement.
“However, in case the oversubscription option is partly exercised or not exercised at all during the offer period for the initial offer, the offer shares under shelf registration will be automatically increased to such number of oversubscription shares that will not be taken up or exercised,” Del Monte said.
Del Monte’s preferred shares will be listed under the main board of the Philippine Stock Exchange.
Proceeds from the fund raising activity will be used to refinance its $350-million loan with BDO Unibank Inc.
BDO Capital and Investments Corp. is the issue manager and lead underwriter for the offering. Other participating underwriters are BPI Capital Corp., China Bank, PNB Capital and RCBC Capital Corp.
Del Monte, based on earlier registration statement filed with the SEC, earlier planned to issue up to 36 million preferred shares at $10 per share with $360 million.
The fruit grower earlier reported that its nine-month net income ending January 2016 hit $41.9 million, a turnaround from $23.9-million net loss recorded in the same period last year.
Nine-month revenues rose 6 percent to $1.7 billion on higher sales from the US, the Philippines and S&W Asia.
DMPL said US subsidiary Del Monte Foods, which accounted for 80 percent of group sales, generated revenue of $1.4 billion, up 8 percent from a prior year period.
The Philippine market also delivered good results with sales up 7 percent, driven by expanded penetration and increased consumption for its juices, tomato-based sauces and packaged pineapple products while sales of the S&W branded business in Asia and the Middle East grew 16 percent on higher sales from both the fresh and packaged segments.
Barring unforeseen circumstances, DMPL said it would report a profit for the full year, a significant turnaround from the loss position last year.
