Philcomsat and the public

Credit to Author: EMETERIO SD. PEREZ| Date: Sun, 06 Jan 2019 16:15:00 +0000

Emeterio Sd. Perez

Concrete Aggregates Corp. (CAC) has informed the Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE) in an amended general information sheet (GIS) of “the approval by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) of the extension of the corporate term of the corporation for another 50 years from August 22, 2018.”

At the same time, CAC also reported in the same GIS that its authorized capital stock (ACS) is divided into 40 million common A shares and 10 million common B shares for a total ACS of 50 million common shares.

Of CAC’s 50 million ACS, 561 Filipinos owned 27,078,470 common shares. Of 561 Filipino stockholders, 539 held 22,077,771 common A shares while 12 held 5,000,699 common B shares.

Concrete Aggregates also had four foreigners as holders of 387,979 common B share: two foreigners owned 55 common B shares and 939 common B share each, while two who were classified under “others” held 386,985 common B shares.

All in all, Filipino and foreigner stockholders of Concrete Aggregates had total CAC holdings of 27,466,449 common A and common B shares. The number of common shares held by these stockholders represents 54.933 percent of Concrete Aggregates’ ACS of 50 million common shares.

In a public ownership report (POR), Concrete Aggregates listed Ortigas & Co. Limited Partnership as holder of 21,007,586 common A and B shares, or 76.48 percent. Ortigas’ holdings were 16,021,974 directly owned CAC common A shares and 4,985,612 directly owned CAC common B shares.

Concrete Aggregates credited CAC’s public stockholders with ownership of 6,451,737 common shares, or 23.49 percent, according to the POR as of Jan. 3, 2019. CAC common shares were traded at P60 per common share throughout the session on Jan. 4, 2019.

Top 100 stockholders

Philippine Communications Satellite Corp. holds 796.596 million common shares, or 79.9481 percent in Philcomsat Holdings Corp. (PHC), making it the majority and controlling stockholder. As in previous filings, Prudencio C. Somera Jr. is PHC’s second biggest with 100 million common shares, or 10.0362 percent, according to the Professional Stock Transfer Inc. Oliverio G. Laperal landed at No. 3 with 49.556 million PHC common shares, or 4.9736 percent. In addition, he also owned 2.689 million PHC common shares, or 0.2699 percent, which were held for him by Rizal Commercial Banking Corp. PCD Nominee Corp., which holds listed companies’ common shares as record stockholder for beneficial owners, holds 16,274,534 PHC common shares, or 1.6333 percent, for “Filipinos/others”. PHC common shares were last traded on May 2, 2017 at P1.40. Trading on the stock remains suspended.

Due Diligencer’s take

If the public stockholders of Philcomsat Holdings really own, and still own, 99,680,921 PHC common shares, or 10.004 percent, how could they either unload or buy more shares if trading on the stock remains suspended?

A POR showed only 60 million PHC common shares are listed on PSE, which represent only 6.0217 percent of 996.391 million PHC common shares. If regulatory authorities were as serious as the public investors believe them to be, they would, perhaps, do something to enable the company’s public stockholders to either accumulate or sell their holdings in Philcomsat.

The least the SEC could probably do would be to suggest for Philcomsat to buy out the public of their PHC holdings. As a suggestion, this would allow the public stockholders of the company, and any other listed company for that matter, to have a venue to dispose of their PHC common shares.

It is not for Due Diligencer to even make that suggestion. However, as one who bats for the public investors, it would only be right for the Securities and Exchange Commission to open a window of opportunity for PHC’s public stockholders to either buy more or sell the common shares they still hold from the time the government-controlled company conducted an initial public offering of common shares.

Are SEC officials listening? Just asking.

esdperez@gmail.com

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