8990 wraps up tender offer, nears delisting

Mass housing developer 8990 Holdings Inc. has moved closer to exiting the Philippine bourse after concluding the tender offer of its shares. The shares were transferred to its subsidiary on Tuesday.

In a notice, the Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE) said the indefinite suspension on trading of 8990’s shares was implemented at 9:02 a.m. on Tuesday. The firm had already gone below the 20-percent minimum public ownership requirement.

The tender offer of 8990 shares was conducted from Sept. 2 to Sept. 30. It involved 580.57 million common shares at P10.42 each.

The shares were transferred from the minority shareholders to subsidiary 8990 Housing Development Corp.

This paves the way for 8990’s P6-billion delisting scheduled on Oct. 29. It would be the third company to go private again this year.

Keppel Philippines Holdings Inc. went private on July 8. Philab Holdings Corp. was forced to exit on July 11.

Analysts said 8990, which currently develops affordable and mid-market residential projects, may have been having a hard time navigating the challenging property market. Its projects include medium-rise condominiums under the Urban Deca Homes brand and high-rise projects under Urban Deca Towers.

The exit of 8990 reflects the challenging environment in the local stock market. It has been struggling to climb and sustain its gains because of recent political developments.

See Also

Manila Water seals P37.8-B WawaJVCo takeover

PSE president and CEO Ramon Monzon earlier told the Inquirer they had reduced their capital raising target to as low as P170 billion. The goal used to be P185 billion. This was due to deferred initial public offerings, including that of casino developer Hann Holdings Inc.

At the same time, Monzon said mounting corruption allegations against high-ranking government officials allegedly involved in anomalous flood control projects had dampened investor sentiment.

Monzon is one of the top business personalities that joined the Sept. 21 protests. He said the billions of pesos lost to corruption could have been reinvested in the market.

“Our index has gone down since all these [corruption] investigations … Can you imagine if all those amounts that disappeared were invested in the market?” he said in an earlier interview.