GT Capital Holdings Inc., the listed holding company of business tycoon George Ty, said Tuesday it raised $222.9 million (P9.84 billion) though a share sale.
GT Capital said in a disclosure to the stock exchange majority shareholders Grand Titan Capital Holdings Inc. and the Ty family sold 8.715 million common shares to foreign and domestic institutional investors at a price of P1,130.00 apiece. The selling price represents a 4.2 percent discount to GT Capital’s closing price of P1,180 on Feb. 2.
GT Capital plans to use proceeds from the share sale to finance a rights issue of the company’s banking unit Metropolitan Bank & Trust Co., Federal Land Inc., Toyota Motors Philippines Corp., Global Business Power Corp, AXA Philippines, Charter Ping An Insurance Corp, Toyota Manila Bay Corp. and Toyota Cubao Inc.
Metrobank, the country’s second-largest lender, last month announced plans to raise P32 billion from the stock market through a rights offering to boost capital and expand branch network. The bank plans to conduct the rights offering in April this year.
Metrobank tapped J.P. Morgan and UBS as joint global coordinators, joint international lead managers and joint book runners, and First Metro Investment Corp. as the sole domestic lead manager and joint bookrunner.l HSBC is acting as co-manager of Metrobank’s rights offering.
GT Capital said it might spend P50 billion in capital expenditures this year as the company remains bullish about the economy.
The conglomerate also plans to diversify into the transportation and infrastructure sectors.
The company earlier expressed interest on two public-private partnership projects of the government, including the LRT Line 2 operation and maintenance contract and Laguna Lakeshore Expressway Dike.
The company is also venturing into geothermal and biomass energy power projects. Global Business has committed to install over 1,000 megawatts of power capacity in the next four years with investment of more than $1 billion.
A Global Business official said last year the 1,000-MW capacity was “a 60 percent growth in three years.”
Global Business Power aims to complete the new 150-MW coal plant expansion of unit Panay Energy Development Corp. by June 2016.
Global Power’s expansion project is expected to back the increasing economic activity in Panay island, as well as address an imminent power supply shortfall in the Visayas grid this year.