Food and beverage maker Del Monte Pacific Ltd., owner of the Del Monte and Today’s brands of pineapple, tomato and mixed-fruit products, started trading on the Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE) today and closed at P27.20, down 8.72% from its initial listing price of P29.80.
DMPL shares hit an intra-day high of P30.00 and a low of P26.55 before closing at P27.20 on its first trading day.
The company got approval from the PSE to offer its shares to the public but not through the traditional way of Initial Public Offering but through the alternative Way of Introduction.
PSE Listing by Way of Introduction
Listing by way of introduction is an alternative form of offering shares to the public. The traditional way is to conduct an Initial Public Offering or IPO. In the PSE’s Amended Rules on Listing by Way of Introduction, there are only five (5) instances where a company will be allowed to list using this alternative route.
Click here to learn more about Listing by Way of Introduction in the Philippines.
DMPL’s Public Listing of Shares
In the case of Del Monte Pacific Limited (DMPL), the company listed by way of introduction since it has complied with Rule (a). Del Monte’s shares are already traded on another exchange, specifically the Singapore Exchange Securities Trading Limited (SGX) where the company’s stock has been trading since 1999. Thus, Del Monte was allowed to list shares on the PSE without need for an IPO.
Today, June 10, Del Monte listed 1,297,500,491 or more than 1.3 million common shares on the PSE. The company’s stock traded using the code “DMPL” and the company was placed under the “Food, Beverage & Tobacco” sub-sector of the Industrial Sector.
The initial listing price of DMPL was determined using the closing price of Del Monte’s shares at the SGX on the trading day prior to its PSE listing day. Last Friday, Del Monte shares closed at S$0.88, equivalent to around P29.80 in Philippine currency. DMPL started trading today using this price.
DMPL Company Background
Del Monte Pacific Limited is a holding firm engaged in growing, processing, and selling canned and fresh pineapples, pineapple juice concentrate, tropical mixed fruit, tomato-based products, beverage products and other food products primarily under the brands Del Monte, S&W and Today’s.
Company filings to the Singapore Stock Exchange shows that Del Monte Pacific earned a gross profit of $19.8 million in the first quarter of 2013, up 12.5% from $17.6 million year-on-year.
Its local subsidiary, Del Monte Philippines, Inc., operates the world’s largest fully-integrated pineapple operation in its 23,000-hectare plantation in Mindanao, with a processing capacity of over 700,000 tons.
Del Monte Philippines markets over 100 processed food and beverage products, such as pineapple solids (slices, tidbits, chunks), tropical mixes, pineapple juice and mixed drinks, tomato-based products (tomato sauce, catsup, spaghetti sauce), condiments, and pasta (spaghetti, macaroni).
DMPL is the third company this year to list its shares on the PSE, following the market debut of Philippine Business Bank (PBB) in February 2013 and the IPO of Asia United Bank (AUB) in May this year.
