Minority investors of Metro Pacific Investment (MPI) are questioning the need for the tender offer extension until September 19.
This extension translates to a delay in the payment of the MPI sell offers amounting to P28 billion from 18.7 percent of the firm’s small investors as the settlement date will be moved from September 19 to September 28.
MPI has reportedly told the Philippine Stock Exchange that its bidders – Salim Group of Indonesia, Mitsui of Japan, GT Capital of the Ty family and bilyonaryo Manny V. Pangilinan – required additional time to secure financing for the deal.
But Babbler questioned why these bidders needed extra time to fund the tender offer, considering they have only acquired 5.365 billion shares or just 59 percent of their minimum target acquisition of 9.1 billion shares for voluntary delisting.
“The bidding consortium ignored the PSE’s recommendation to pay the minority investors on the initially promised date of September 19. Why should these investors have to wait for their money just because the bidders want to buy out the remaining investors with miniscule holdings?” Babbler said.
The small investors argue that MPI bidders have already achieved their main goal by buying back 96.7 percent of MPI’s shares (including the 12 percent stake of Government Service Insurance System which the pension plan wants to keep after delisting).
This is already above the 95 percent threshold for voluntary delisting as of September 7.
Of the remaining 3.13 percent of shares still outstanding, the Social Security System and Pag-IBIG held 2.26 percent and these government financial institutions have decided not to tender their shares just like GSIS. This means that the MPI bidders will only be targeting less than one percent of MPI during the extension period.