The second initial public offering (IPO) this year — and probably the last for the year — is the IPO of supermarket chain Puregold Price Club Inc.
The final offer price will be determined on September 21, although the company already said each share will not be priced higher than P18.00. Domestic offering will run from September 23 until September 29.
The Puregold shares, with stock code “PGOLD” — will be listed on the exchange and will be available for secondary trading beginning October 5.
The company said up to 500 million new shares and 100 million shares held by majority shareholders will be offered to the public. An overallotment option of 90 million more shares will be available in case of strong demand. Proceeds of the IPO are expected to reach up to P12.4 billion which will be used by the company to open additional branches nationwide.
The Lucio Co-owned Puregold supermarket chain currently has 72 network branches around the Philippines. The company plans to add 25 more in 2012 and an additional 25 branches in 2013.
HSBC and UBS AG will be the international lead managers for the share offering while BDO Capital & Investment Corp. and First Metro Investment Corp. will be lead managers in the Philippines.
The Puregold IPO is only the second, and probably the last, IPO in the Philippines for the year. In February, construction firm Megawide Construction Corp. (MWIDE) offered for the first time shares to the public. The stock’s offering price was P7.84 and closed unchanged during its first trading day. As of September 1, 2011, MWIDE shares are trading at P10.48 apiece.
