Roxas Holdings Inc. (RHI) has requested for a nine trading-day suspension following the announcement by businessman Leandro Leviste of plans to buy into the company.
Leviste and his Countryside Investments Holdings Corp. signed a term sheet with Manuel Pangilinan’s group for the purchase of 71.6 percent of RHI for P5 billion.
Pangilinan’s group holds a stake in RHI through First Pacific Natural Resources Holdings BV and First Agri Holdings Corp.
The suspension started yesterday and will last until 10 a.m. of May 31, the date when the investment agreement between Leviste and Pangilinan is supposed to be executed as per the term sheet.
RHI, however, told the Philippine Stock Exchange the term sheet “is indicative only and does not create any legally binding obligation on any of the parties” given that it is still subject to the closing of various conditions, documentations as well as regulatory approvals.
Leviste in a social media post of his company Solar Philippines Project Holdings Inc. last week said Countryside’s investment will help RHI “service debt to avoid bankruptcy, increase tax revenues of the municipality of Nasugbu, and create more and better jobs for the benefit of local farmers and former sugar industry workers.”
RHI currently has P4.4 billion in debt and P1.4 billion of trade payables.
RHI is 20.57 percent owned by Roxas and Co. Inc. (RCI) in which Leviste recently acquired close to 15 percent and has become the largest individual shareholder of the company.
The land of RHI is beside the approximately 2,494 hectares owned by RCI. RCI was recently served a notice of collection and was threatened with foreclosure over unpaid real property taxes by the municipality of Nasugbu.
This comes amid a long-standing land dispute between RCI and an estimated 50,000 residents and agrarian reform beneficiaries.
Solar Philippines said the investment in RHI and RCI form part of Countryside’s plan to invest over P5 billion to develop Batangas, Leviste’s home province.
Leviste will fund this investment from the proceeds of the sale of shares in SP New Energy Corp. (SPNEC) to Meralco PowerGen Corp. (MGen) which, along with Metro Pacific Investments Corp. (MPIC), have purchased shares in SPNEC for P20.4 billion to date.
Both MGen and MPIC are chaired by Pangilinan.
Most of SPNEC’s assets are in Nueva Ecija, where the company is developing a 3,500-hectare solar project.
SPNEC also owns and operates a 63-megawatt solar farm in Calatagan, a neighboring town of Nasugbu, in Batangas. In an earlier interview, Leviste said some of the lands of RHI would be suitable for solar farm development.
