Metro Pacific Investments Corporation raises ₱8.64 billion for tollroads

Metro Pacific Investments Corporation has placed ₱8.64 billion in new MPIC shares with existing and new investors to raise funds for investments in infrastructure, particularly its toll-road business.

In a disclosure to the Philippine Stock Exchange, MPIC priced the 2.4 billion shares it sold at ₱ 3.60 each in a placement managed by CLSA Limited and J.P. Morgan Securities Ltd.

The placement was conducted overnight and garnered strong interest from institutional investors in Asia, Europe, and the US as well as from MPHI.

"This undertaking prepares us for the planned expansion of our tollroads business that will bring us closer to realizing our vision of connecting the North Expressway to the South into one seamless highway," said MPIC president Jose Ma. K. Lim.

MPIC chairman Manuel V. Pangilinan said "we are very keen to help the Government of President Benigno S. Aquino III make its PPP initiatives work for the good of the country and our shareholders."

Pangilinan was referring to public-private partnerships aimed at employing private funds to build or improve public infrastructure such as roads, railways and airports.

MPIC had planned to raise up to ₱ 8.75 billion by issuing up to 1.25 billion new shares indirectly to investors as well as 1.19 billion common shares to controlling shareholder Metro Pacific Holdings Inc. Through an overnight and accelerated top-up placement transaction, MPHI planned to sell up to 1.25 billion of its MPIC common shares at ₱ 3.57 per share.

The private placement was primarily offshore by way of marketed placing to investors outside the United States as well as domestically to a limited extent to qualified investors.

As part of the transaction, MPHI was to subscribe up to 1.25 billion common shares out of the MPIC's current authorized and unissued capital stock at the issue price of at least ₱ 3.57 per share. MPHI also planned to subscribe to 1.19 billion MPIC shares from MPIC's current authorized and unissued capital stock at the issue price of ₱ 3.60 per share.