PRIME Metroline Holdings Inc., the holding firm of Enrique K. Razon Jr., sold in an overnight placement about 350 million shares of Bloomberry Resorts Corp. The amount represents 3.18 percent of the billionaire’s stake in the company.
Prime Metroline, however, still remains to be the largest shareholder with 65.58 percent of the Bloomberry shares outstanding after this transaction, it said. The shares were sold at P10.85 per share, equivalent to approximately P3.8 billion.
The shares of Bloomberry, where Razon is also chairman and controlling shareholder, closed at P11.90 on Monday.
The shares were placed to international institutional investors at an 8-percent discount on Monday, the company said.
“I am very confident of the prospects for Bloomberry,” Razon said. “I believe that the increased liquidity in the stock will be beneficial for investors and the company.”
Goldman Sachs (Singapore) Pte. was the sole placement agent for this transaction.
Bloomberry, owner and operator of Solaire Resort and Casino, said its income grew by almost half to P1.95 billion during the second quarter of the year from P1.33 billion last year.
It said the recovery was mainly from the 34-percent increase in profitability in its Philippine operations and lower losses from Korea. The net profits, however, were lower by 9 percent on a quarter-on-quarter basis mainly due to the unrealized foreign-exchange losses in the company’s South Korean operations.
This brings its first half income to P4.11 billion in profits, 24 times larger than the P174 million in profits reported last year and the highest January to June profit ever reported by the company.