Citicore Renewable Energy Corp. (CREC) said Thursday it is reducing the size of its planned initial public offering to P7.97 billion from an initial estimate of P12.9 billion.
The reduction was largely due to SM Investments Corp.’s (SMIC) P5-billion investment in CREC’s real estate investment trust firm Citicore REIT Corp., according to a CREC official.
Based on CREC’s latest prospectus posted on its website, it will now sell up to 1.785 billion common shares with an overallotment option for another 267.858 million second common shares at an offer price of up to P3.88 apiece.
CREC’s maiden offering will be held in May. In its earlier prospectus, CREC said it was planning to sell 2.9 billion common shares with an overallotment of up to 435 million common shares.
The offer period will be from May 20 to 24, 2024. The shares will be listed on the main board of the Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE) on May 31, 2024.
It plans to use the proceeds from the offering to partially fund its capital expenditures and pipeline development for solar energy plants and battery energy storage system (BESS), as well as general corporate purposes.
CREC has a pipeline of renewable energy projects in the Philippines in line with its goal of adding approximately 1 gigawatts of ready-to-build/under construction solar energy capacity each year through 2027.
It has installed capacity of 285.1 megawatts as of end September, accounting for 19 percent of the country’s totaled installed capacity of 1.5 GW.
The company engaged UBS AG as sole global coordinator and joint bookrunner and BDO Capital & Investment Corp. as domestic lead manager and joint bookrunner for the IPO.
SMIC reported last month that it acquired 28.79-percent stake in CREIT, the country’s first renewable energy real estate investment trust firm, for P5 billion.
SMIC purchased 1.884 billion shares in CREIT owned by CREC and Citicore Solar Tarlac 1.
The PSE targets six IPOs and P175 billion worth of equity deals this year.