DEL Monte Pacific Ltd. said it will offer the second tranche of its dollar-denominated preferred shares to the Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE). Proceeds of the offering will be used to pay for loans the Campos-led firm secured for the acquisition of Del Monte Foods Inc. of the United States.
The company added it has submitted the documents to the Securities and Exchange Commission for it to offer up to 16 million in Series-A preferred shares. It expects to raise as much as $160 million for the deal. The company said it has appointed BDO Capital and Investment Corp. as the sole issue manager for the offering.
“The expected proceeds of the offering will be primarily used for the payment of the $154-million balance of the bridge-loan facility extended by BDO Unibank Inc. to the company, which partially financed the acquisition of the Del Monte Foods Inc.’s consumer-food business,” the company said.
The said offering is part of the $360-million dollar-denominated securities preferred share offering, which it will try to raise within three years.
Earlier this year the company already issued some 20 million in preferred shares, which were listed at the PSE in April. It raised some $200 million from the offer.
Luis Alejandro, Del Monte Pacific COO, earlier said the goal of the company is to grow its presence outside of the US, where some 80 percent of its revenues come from.
“We have a long way to go in penetrating China,” Alejandro added.
“In our America [operation], we are not yet in South America. It’s an entirely differently market; we have the brand, but we are not yet there right now,” he said. “The other market we have not yet penetrated is the ethnic market— that’s Filipinos, Mexicans, Indians. The company has been an American product but has not yet tapped that and that provides an avenue for expanding the market.”
Alejandro expressed confidence that, over the long term, the foray into China would reduce the current share of the US operation to the whole Del Monte pie.