Travellers International Hotels Group Inc. said its public float will drop to less than two percent after the completion of a tender offer, making it eligible for delisting from the local bourse.
TIHGI said in a disclosure to the stock exchange a total of 1.321 billion shares out of the 1.582 billion held by the public were tendered at the end of the offering period on Sept. 23.
The tendered shares will be crossed on the Philippine Stock Exchange on Sept. 30. This will cause the company’s public to drop to less than two percent, trigger trading suspension and the eventual delisting of TIHGI.
The listing rules of the PSE require all companies to maintain a public float of at least 10 percent.
At a tender offer price of P5.50 per share, TIHGI will spend P7.26 billion to repuchase 1.32 billion worth of stocks.
The board of directors in August approved the delisting of the company’s shares to enable it to “timely address evolving market demands and rapidly changing customer needs without compromising its business strategies to competition.”
TIHGI operates Resorts World Manila, an integrated resort and casino that opened in 2009 in Pasay City. It is the first integrated resort and casino to open in country.
It faced growing competition in recent years with the opening of other integrated resorts, such as Solaire, City of Dreams Manila and Okada Manila, which are situated within the Pagcor Entertainment City in Parañaque.
TIHGI is the second casino company in Manila to delist this year. Melco Resorts and Entertainment Philippines, which operates City of Dreams Manila of Macau casino tycoon Lawrence Ho, delisted in June.
TIHGI registered a 50-percent decline in net income to P844.7 million in the first six months of the year from P1.67 billion year-on-year, due to higher finance charges and increased depreciation expense. n. Jenniffer B. Austria
Gross revenues rose 50 percent to P16.5 billion from P11 billion on year.
Gaming revenues increased 50.3 percent to P13.5 billion while non gaming revenues, including sales from hotel, food, beverage businesses climbed 51.8 percent to P2.3 billion.
