Landbank eyes lower offer price for PDSHC share holders

FILE: LANDBANK president and CEO Alex V. Buenaventura (Photo: Land Bank of the Philippines/Facebook)

MANILA — The top management of Land Bank of the Philippines (Landbank) is considering a lower purchase offer to shareholders of Philippine Dealing System Holdings Corp. (PDSHC) after it declared a PHP600 million dividend last June.

In an interview, Landbank President Alex Buenaventura said they “cannot stick” to the original price offer of PHP360 apiece because of the dividend declaration last June 28.

He, however, assured stakeholders that due diligence will be conducted as Landbank officials formulate their response to the acceptance letters sent by 43 percent of the total shareholders.

He is hopeful that by “the end of next week” the state-owned bank can send out the response to the acceptance letters.

Buenaventura earlier disclosed that they have offered to buy the stakes of some PDSHC holders, the offer period running from March 5 to April 5, 2018, with the total acquisition cost for the 66.67 percent stake placed at PHP1.5 billion , which will be sourced from the bank’s internal funds.

Even if only 43 percent of the shareholders accepted the bank’s offer to date, Buenaventura remains optimistic.

“We are still going for 67 percent. What we are saying is that 43 have already indicated or accepted our offer but we need to respond to them because things have changed, they have declared dividends,” he said.

The Landbank chief earlier said the move to increase the bank’s share in PDSHC is in support of the government’s bid to further enhance the domestic capital market and ensure financial inclusion nationwide.

To date, the largest shareholder in PDSHC is the Philippine Stock Exchange Inc. (PSE) at 20.98 percent or holdings of 1,311,439 shares.

It is followed by the Singapore Exchange Ltd.’s (SGX) while the Bankers Association of the Philippines (BAP) is the third largest shareholder with 829,000 shares or 13.26 percent of the total.