House-and-lot developer Sta. Lucia Land Inc. deferred its planned P9.87-billion share sale.
Sta. Lucia Land was originally seeking to sell up to 3 billion common shares at a price range of P2.38 to P3.29 per share.
After conducting the book-building process, a mechanism to determine the demand for the shares from investors and the final offer price, Sta. Lucia said it decided that it would be in the best interest of the company and shareholders not to proceed with the share sale.
“Unfortunately, after careful consideration of the results received during the book-building process, the company determined that it will not be in the best interest of the company and its shareholders to move forward with the follow on offering at this time,” Sta. Lucia said.
Sta. Lucia said pricing its share sale at a significant discount would not help enhance the share value of the company, which is one of the main objectives of the follow-on offering aside from raising fresh capital to fund projects.
Its planned share sale also coincided with the slew of equity raising activities scheduled over the next two months, which could have affected demand.
Based on the company’s filing, Sta. Lucia plans to use the net proceeds to fund capital expenditures of new and ongoing projects, payment of short-term debt, strategic land banking and general corporate purposes.
Sta. Lucia chief finance officer David Dela Cruz said the company now planned to borrow from banks and use internally-generated funds to fund its projects.
This is the second time that Sta. Lucia deferred its planned share sale. In 2019, the company planned to sell 2.7 billion common shares with an over-allotment option for another 500 million common shares at P2.26 to P2.80 per share.
It then decided to defer the planned follow-on offering, citing renewed market volatility.
The share price of Sta. Lucia rose 1.38 percent Friday to close at P2.94.
