LISTED fastfood chain Jollibee Foods Corp. (JFC) said it is planning to raise up to P8 billion through a preferred shares offering, with a portion earmarked for repaying financial obligations.
The company’s board approved the plan to offer and issue five million preferred shares with an oversubscription option of up to three million preferred shares at P1,000 apiece, JFC said in a stock exchange disclosure on Monday.
“These will be cumulative, nonvoting, nonparticipating, nonconvertible, redeemable, peso-denominated perpetual preferred shares,” the company said.
“The dividend rate and other terms of the planned additional preferred shares will be determined at the time of pricing of the offering,” it added.
The offer is still subject to approval by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Philippine Stock Exchange.
According to JFC, the funding transaction seeks to “maintain strong capital structure, robust leverage position, and optimize liquidity by managing maturities of financial obligations.”
“A portion of the net proceeds from the offering will be used to refinance financial obligations including JFC’s callable Series A Preferred Shares, which is due in October 2024 and for other general business purposes,” it said.
The recently approved offer will be the second tranche of JFC’s 20 million preferred shares shelf registration approved by the SEC in September 2021.
“The second tranche preferred shares will come from the reclassification of the existing authorized and unissued common shares of JFC, thus not expanding the total number of authorized shares in its equity base,” the company said.
“The preferred shares issuance will also not affect the current cash dividend policy and its implementation i.e., 33% of net income attributable to common equity holders of the parent company,” it added.
BPI Capital Corp., Chinabank Capital Corp., and BDO Capital & Investment Corp. will be jointly underwriting the offer.
JFC operates 6,885 stores across the world as of end-2023, higher by 6.3% compared to the prior year.
Broken down, the company has 3,339 stores in the Philippines and 3,546 stores in other countries.
JFC’s international stores include 567 in China, 389 in North America, 337 in Europe, Middle East, and Africa, 779 with Highlands Coffee mainly in Vietnam, 1,164 with Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf (CBTL), and 310 with Milksha.
The company’s largest brands by store outlets worldwide are Jollibee at 1,660, CBTL at 1,164, Highlands Coffee at 779, Chowking at 613, and Mang Inasal at 573.
On Monday, JFC shares fell by 1.52% or P4 to P260 apiece. — Revin Mikhael D. Ochave
