DITO CME proceeds with follow-on offering

DITO CME Holdings Corp. is now proceeding with its follow-on offering, targeting to raise as much as P2.05 billion, the operator of telecommunications company DITO Telecommunity Corp. said on Monday.

DITO CME priced its follow-on offering of 1.95 billion common shares at P1.05 apiece, with the offer period running from Nov. 20 until Nov. 26, the company said in a disclosure.

The shares will be listed on Dec. 6, with BDO Capital & Investment Corp. as the sole underwriter for the offering.

To recall, the follow-on offering of the company was initially set from Sept. 26 to Oct. 2, but it was later delayed to further assess market appetite. The final price of the follow-on offering was also slashed from its earlier announcement of up to P2.15 per share.

“This price is significantly lower than previously indicated… the offering, which was delayed, allows potential investors time to evaluate market conditions,” Toby Allan C. Arce, head of sales trading at Globalinks Securities and Stocks, Inc., said in a Viber message on Monday.

Mr. Arce said the steep discount in the offer price could be enticing to value-oriented investors as it might imply a potential upside of DITO CME’s growth strategies.

“However, concerns about the company’s current market standing and competitive pressures may deter more risk-averse participants,” he said.

For the third quarter, DITO CME returned to profitability after recording an attributable net income of P998.05 million from a net loss of P4.3 billion in the same period last year.

The company recorded a gross revenue of P4.23 billion for the July-to-August period, 36% higher than last year’s P3.11 billion, its financial statement showed.

Broken down, service revenues accounted for the bulk of its revenues for the period at P4.12 billion, climbing by 36.4% from last year’s P3.02 billion, while revenues from non-service activities reached P114.1 million for the period.

At the local bourse on Monday, shares in the company fell by 12 centavos, or 6.28%, to close at P1.79 apiece. — Ashley Erika O. Jose