Union Bank of the Philippines, one of the largest lenders in terms of assets, said Monday it completed a P12-billion stock rights offering that was well-received by shareholders.
UnionBank said in a disclosure to the stock exchange it concluded the offering of 210.97 million common shares priced at P56.88 apiece. The shares were offered to eligible shareholders as of the record date of Jan. 12, 2023 at a ratio of one rights share for every 10.1536 existing common shares.
The newly-issued shares were listed on the Philippine Stock Exchange on Feb. 6, resulting in total outstanding shares amounting to over 2.35 billion.
“The strong participation of our existing shareholders on our stock rights offering reflects their trust in the value that will be created by executing our strategies,” UnionBank president and chief executive Edwin Bautista said in a statement.
“With the completion of our SRO, we aim to pursue our long-term objective to become a leader in retail banking in the Philippines,” Bautista said.
Proceeds from the SRO will be used to solidify the bank’s capital adequacy and financial strength and to execute its strategic growth initiatives by expanding its balance sheet to meet growing demand from its target markets.
The bank said it would deploy additional capital to UnionDigital, support loan availments by customers of both retail loans and corporate and commercial loans.
The SRO garnered strong participation from UnionBank’s shareholders led by its principal shareholders Aboitiz Equity Ventures, Social Security System and Insular Life, recording an oversubscription.
The offering was almost fully subscribed even at the first round of the offer, with the second round also heavily oversubscribed.
CLSA Exchange Capital Inc. and Unicapital Inc. acted as joint global coordinators and joint domestic underwriters for the offering.
UnionBank posted a net income of P12.7 billion in 2022, almost unchanged from P12.6 billion in 2021. This translated into a return on average equity of 9.7 percent, which took into consideration the impact of the P40-billion additional capital coming from the stock rights offer in May 2022.
