Petron Corporation, the San Miguel group’s oil and gas subsidiary, has set the initial dividend rate for the P17 billion worth of preferred shares that will be issued after a follow-on offering.
In a disclosure to the Philippine Stock Exchange, the firm said the initial dividend rate is 6.8364 percent per annum for the Series 4D Preferred shares (PRF4D) and 7.1032 percent p.a. for the Series 4E Preferred shares (PRF4E).
Next week, on Sept. 5, Petron will offer these perpetual, cumulative, deferrable, non-voting, non-participating, non-convertible, reissuable Philippine Peso-denominated SEC-registered preferred shares from the unissued portion of the company’s authorized capital stock.
The firm said this is the second tranche under its 50 million shelf-registered and shelf-listed Preferred Shares and will consist of a base offering of 13 million Series 4 Preferred Shares and an oversubscription option of up to four billion shares.
In the event of an oversubscription, the Joint Lead Underwriters, in consultation with Petron, reserve the right, but do not have the obligation, to increase the offer size by up to P4 billion.
The net proceeds of the offer shall be used to redeem Petron’s Series 3A Preferred Shares, refinance maturing obligations, and fund general corporate purposes, including the purchase of crude oil inventory.
The offer period will run from Sept. 5to 13, 2024 with the shares slated for listing at the PSE’s Main Board on Sept. 23, 2024.
Leading oil player Petron posted a slight downturn in the first half to P6 billion from last year’s P6.14 billion in the same period. Operating income improved eight percent to P17.3 billion from the year-ago level of P16 billion.
As sales had been on escalated pace in the first six months both at domestic base and its offshore market in Malaysia, Petron similarly reported substantial hike of 21 percent in its revenues to P444.5 billion from P367 billion in the same period last year.
“Petron’s sales volumes in the Philippines rose 27 percent to 44.4 million barrels, while volumes from its Malaysian operations grew by nine percent to 24.7 million barrels,” the company noted.
On consolidated basis, the aggregated volume sales for both Malaysia and the Philippines went up 20 percent to 69.1 million barrels versus last year’s 57.6 million barrels.
According to Petron President and CEO Ramon S. Ang, “our prudent and strategic approach continues to pay off amid challenging economic conditions.”
In the retail segment of the market, Petron registered 10 percent rise in sales, indicating that this “remained a key driver of the stellar volume performance through effective marketing programs in the company’s combined service station network of about 2,600 outlets in the Philippines and Malaysia."
Moreover, volume uptake by its industrial accounts had grown nine percent; and that had been precipitated mainly by higher demand of jet fuel as well as liquefied petroleum gas.