Metropolitan Bank & Trust Co., the second-largest lender in terms of assets, said Thursday it successfully completed a P60-billion stock rights offering.
Metrobank said in a statement the offer period closed on April 4. The offer to eligible shareholders of 799,842,250 common shares was priced at P75 per share. The new capital was listed at the Philippine Stock Exchange Thursday.
“The offer was taken up entirely by the bank’s existing shareholders, with broad support seen across the shareholder base resulting in a substantial oversubscription,” it said.
“The bank believes that the success of the offer represents a strong vote of confidence from investors in the bank and its strategy. The bank believes that the robust growth of the Philippines will continue to support loan expansion across the various segments of the economy,” Metrobank said.
Metrobank said it sought to capitalize on the growth opportunities of large cap corporates and especially in its core franchise, the middle market and small to medium enterprises segments.
“Rising per capita levels also bode well for the potential in the growing consumer space, specifically in credit cards, auto loans and home mortgage,” it said.
It said the capital-raising exercise was expected to enable it to pursue business prospects to sustain the loan growth momentum, leveraging on the bank’s sales and distribution network that rapidly expanded in preceding years.
It said a portion of the proceeds would be used for the acquisition of a 40-percent equity stake in Metrobank Card Corp., the final tranche of which was to be completed by the third quarter of 2018.
The additional capital from the offer is expected to further enhance the bank’s capital ratios, keeping it above the Philippine Basel III requirements, it said.
“Pro forma for the offer, the bank had a total capital adequacy ratio of 18.1 percent, and common equity tier 1 of 15.6 percent as of Dec. 31, 2017, both ratios above the BSP requirements, inclusive of the D-SIB [domestic systemically important bank] buffer,” it said.
The offer was led by UBS as joint global coordinator, joint bookrunner and international underwriter and First Metro Investment Corp. as joint global coordinator, joint bookrunner, issue manager and domestic lead underwriter.
Metrobank posted a consolidated net income of P18.2 billion in 2017, almost unchanged from P18.1 billion in 2016.
