The Aboitiz family retracted their shares buyback announcement just a couple of hours after declaring the purchase of P1 million shares from their energy unit.
“No share buyback transactions have yet to be made. Any transaction in the share buyback program will be duly disclosed to the Philippine Stock Exchange and the Securities and Exchange Commission,” clarified Aboitiz Power during a trading break on September 14.
AP had initially disclosed that it had acquired 29,400 shares at P33.808 on September 11 under their previously approved share buyback program. AP’s CFO and corporate information officer Liza Luv Montelibano disclosed that she bought the same amount of shares on the same day at P33.81.
Abacus Securities had pointed out in a recent report that AP’s public float has fallen to 20.05 percent as of the end of June, which is a whisker away from the 20 percent minimum threshold required to stay in the PSE Index.
Abacus noted that the purchase of 1.083 million shares over the last two months by AP director Danel Aboitiz, the son of Aboitiz Transport System chairman and bilyonaryo Enrique “Endika” Aboitiz Jr., has pushed the stock dangerously close to breaching the free float threshold.
Abacus estimated that if AP were to acquire 3.28 million shares through the buyback program, it would likely fall below the 20 percent floor limit.
“We are uncertain if management is aware of this issue, but it may impact the share price in the near term,” commented Abacus.
As of now, AP has not disclosed its budget or the targeted number of shares for the buyback plan, despite the PSE’s request for further clarification two days after approving the buyback plan on August 29.