Leading oil firm Petron Corporation is scheduling the redemption of its Series 2B preferred shares by November 3 this year at a redemption price of P1,000.00 per share.

In a disclosure to the Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE), the company noted that it already “commenced delivery of its notice of redemption to stockholders of record date October 7, 2021 in respect of the redemption of its Series 2B preferred shares.”

The shares have been part of the Series 2A and Series 2B preferred shares issuance carried out by the company in 2014 -- wherein it was able to tender up to 10 million shares and enabled it to fetch proceeds of P10 billion.

The redemption price, according to the oil company, is in accordance with the terms and conditions of that particular preferred shares float seven years ago.

The dividends on that preferred shares issuance, it was noted, had been set at a fixed rate of 6.3000 percent per annum for the Series 2A shares, and 5.8583 percent per annum for the Series 2B shares.

The offer size then had been pegged at P7.0 billion; but there was an option to increase it by another P3.0 billion; hence, total proceeds reached P10 billion.

Petron officials previously indicated the revenues that flowed from that shares issuance had been used to redeem the earlier preferred shares issued in 2010.

As further stipulated in the terms of the 2014 shares issuance, “upon redemption, the outstanding preferred shares shall be considered treasury shares and shall be retired.”

The next step for Petron is to advance the initial tranche of P18-billion peso-denominated fixed rate bonds for this year, which form part of the oil firm’s P50-billion fixed rate bonds shelf registration with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The proceeds from that fresh round of capital raising activity, the company said, will be funneled for the settlement of outstanding financial obligations and to partly bankroll corporate funding requirements.

Petron emphasized that the targeted issue will also be listed with the Philippine Dealing & Exchange Corporation (PDEx); and that will start with the initial tranche.

Petron is currently at its recovery phase from the financial crunch it suffered from the Covid-19 pandemic; and one of its major business decision is to sustain the operations of its Limay refining facility under the policy tutelage of the Authority of the Freeport Area of Bataan.