PinoyBusiness.ORG – Home

Cebu Pacific has announced last Monday of its plan to sell new shares to the public to raise funds of about P12 billion. The announcement was made by Cebu Air Inc., the company that operates the Cebu Pacific Airline.

The company said it planned to list 125.25 million new common shares through an initial public offering (IPO). The new shares are valued at close to P12 billion, with the maximum offer price set to P95 each by the company. It was actually in 2008 when Cebu Pacific planned to go public, but decided to postpone it then because of the jittery market conditions at the time.

Aside from its planned IPO, Cebu Air also said it asked the Securities and Exchange Commission to approve their listing for additional 110 million existing shares at the same price. The company said it wants to list the 35.33 million shares owned by Cebu Pacific’s parent company JG Summit Holdings Inc. “subject to the over-allotment option granted to the stabilizing agent under the same terms and conditions as the primary and secondary offer.”

In addition, as part of the company’s employee stock option plan, an additional 18.4 million shares will also be listed at a 25-percent discount to the IPO price.

Cebu Pacific said that the company would offer the shares primarily to international institutional investors, even though it would be listed on the local bourse. JG Summit vice president for finance Bach Johan Sebastian justified the move by saying, “There is not enough capital available in the country for an offer of this size.”

Sebastian said the figures were only indicative and did not necessarily mean that this would be the exact amount the company wanted to raise. “We just had to put a nominal value in our request, but that does not mean that we are targeting to raise that amount,” he said.

There is still no stated date as to when the company plan to conduct its IPO. The proceeds of the IPO would be used by the company for its continuing expansion plans.