SP New Energy Corp. (SPNEC), whose shares have been suspended from trading at the Philippine Stock Exchange, on Tuesday hoped for a quick reinstatement of the trading of its shares even prior to the increase of its public float.
Leandro Antonio L. Leviste, Solar Philippines founder, SPNEC chairman, president and CEO said, the company is working to increase its public float component, which fell below the 20-percent minimum required for newly-registered firms.
Its public float equal only 13 percent after the Securities and Exchange Commission approved the increase in capital stock to P5 billion, divided into 50 billion common shares, from only P1 billion.
According to Leviste, an earlier-than-anticipated SEC approval of their bid to increase SPNEC’s capital stock “inadvertently also resulted in the trading suspension” of its shares.
“But of course, the SEC has not caused that. We should have kept the float above 20 percent. But we’re very thankful to the SEC for their prompt approval of our ACS increase,” he said.
“We are working to increase our public float as soon as possible. And we are hopeful that we can resume trading even prior to achieving that increase,” he said.
He argued a large food and beverage company in 2018 was allowed to trade even as its shares fell below the minimum required since it was undergoing consolidation.
According to him, the best way to increase the float component is sell via private placement 2.12 billion shares, assuming the 1.6 billion shares bought by Metro Pacific Investments Corp. do not count.
He said the company has buyers potentially generating P3.09 billion based on share price that last closed at P1.46 per share on June 2.
“Yes, we just need to finalize the arrangement with these identified buyers and then execute the corresponding documentation so that we can get back up over 20 percent,” he said.
MPIC in March acquired 16 percent of SPNEC for P2 billion and an option to become the biggest shareholder of up to 43 percent once the solar power firm raised its authorized capital stock to P50 billion from P10 billion.
