SFA nears delisting as tender offer wraps up

The controlling stockholder of SFA Semicon Philippines Inc. has completed its tender offer to buy out the microchip maker’s minority shareholders, and has moved closer to exiting the local bourse.

In a stock exchange filing on Friday, the company said SFA Semicon Co. Ltd. (SFA Korea) on Thursday, Nov. 21, bought 192.77 million common shares, representing a 9.43-percent stake.

Trading of SFA’s shares was suspended to make way for the P427.96-million block sale.

This caused SFA’s public ownership level to drop to 0.59 percent, or way below the 10-percent minimum requirement. SFA Korea now owns 99.41 percent of the local firm.

Under the Philippine Stock Exchange’s (PSE) voluntary delisting rules, SFA Korea needs to obtain at least 95 percent of SFA’s shares before the latter can exit the bourse.

The tender offer was priced at P2.22 per share, a 30-percent premium over SFA’s price of P1.57 on Friday. This is also 30 percent below its initial public offering (IPO) price of P3.15 in December 2014.

‘Bare minimum’

Analysts previously noted that SFA’s delisting was expected due to its “bare minimum” public float (pegged at 10.01 percent before the tender offer), the lack of liquidity of its stock, and seeing how the market has “undervalued” it for years.

Since the beginning of 2024, SFA’s share price has fallen by 28.96 percent.

If SFA delists within the year, the score between delistings and IPOs will even out.

The stock market has so far seen two exits this year—Premium Leisure Corp. and Cebu Holdings Inc.—against three IPOs by OceanaGold Philippines Inc., Citicore Renewable Energy Corp. and NexGen Energy Corp.

With no other company slated to brave the market this year, the PSE will not reach its goal of seeing six IPOs in 2024.

Cebu-based fuel retailer Top Line Development Corp. has moved its stock market debut to the first quarter of 2025 to accommodate potential institutional investors.

PSE president Ramon Monzon earlier said high interest rates and volatility had prompted companies to “opt out of raising capital from the equities market in the last few months.”

But Monzon remained optimistic that easing interest rates and new products would attract more investors next year.

The benchmark Philippine Stock Exchange Index has risen by 4.7 percent since the beginning of 2024, although it has recently been volatile as traders digested the impact of another US presidential term for Donald Trump.