LBC to file follow-on offering by end-November

COURIER LBC Express Holdings Inc. may file this month the company’s registration statement for its follow-on offering as part of its backdoor-listing procedures.

Enrique Rey, the company’s acting chief financial officer and treasurer, told reporters that, based on the timeline, the company may do the offering sometime during the first quarter of next year.

Rey said the company may raise P1.2 billion from the offer. It will offer 10 million in primary shares and 59.1 million in secondary shares.

“The offering aims to finish our backdoor-listing process,” Rey said.

LBC, a company known for its parcel-delivery and remittance businesses, made its backdoor listing at the Philippine Stock Exchange, through Federal Resources Investment Group Inc. after the Araneta-led firm failed on its plan to go public on its own two years ago.

Company officials earlier said most of the proceeds will be spent on the expansion of the company’s branches and information-technology infrastructure.

The company is planning to establish 100 branches every year over the next 10 years. Currently, the total market capitalization of company, which claimed to corner 40 percent of the total industry—composed of air- land- and sea-courier shipments—stood at P17.82 billion. Rey said this will grow to about P20 billion and P24 billion after the offering.

For the nine months of the year, the company’s income surged by 59 percent to P620.54 million, from last year’s P389.33 million.

Revenues rose 11 percent to P6.35 billion, from last year’s P5.71 billion. Most of its revenues came from logistics and only 13 percent came from money remittance both from abroad and domestic.

“LBC’s strong financial performance for the third quarter was driven by the company’s focus on expanding our portfolio of business solutions simultaneous with our push to continuously improve our express-delivery service. It’s a trend that we see continuing, as we move into the last quarter of the year, which is typically the industry’s peak season,” said Mike Camahort, the company’s chairman. LBC said it opened 30 new branches this year, with around 10 more anticipated to open before the year ends.