Metro Pacific Investments Corp. is extending the timetable of its acquisition plan of coconut products manufacturer Axelum Resources Corp. amid plans to revisit forward assumptions.
June Cheryl Cabal-Revilla, MPIC chief finance officer, said this is in the light of Axelum’s failure to meet its own internal targets prior to the closing of the MPIC entry.
“We have to dig deeper into the assumptions and the key performance indices (KPI), etc… (this) week, we will have a meeting with them and then we will see their forecast for 2024, because we did the due diligence early last year towards the end of the year and early this year also. But through the unfolding of results in 2023, they’ve been very far from their numbers,” she said.
Cabal-Revilla said both parties hopefully can arrive at an agreement by the end of the year, subject to the extended due diligence.
Cabal-Revilla said the discussion may change the final valuation of the company given the missed targets and new Axelum targets moving forward.
“They were saying they envisage the US market to be back at the pre-pandemic level. It has not. The US has been a problematic area for them.They have to take a look at their sales distribution, their logistical costs, etc. Those are the things that they’re taking a look at,” Cabal-Revilla said.
MPIC was earlier looking at a P5.32 billion acquisition of Axelum in exchange for a 34.76 percent stake in the company, by buying existing shareholders and subscribing to 200 million redeemable preferred shares.
The transaction was originally targeted to close by the end of the second quarter.
