PhilWeb to raise $128.6m to fund expansion plan

Tuesday 31st of May 2016

Philippines-based PhilWeb Corporation is raising at least P6 billion (US$128.6 million) from the sale of treasury and subsidiary-held shares to finance an aggressive expansion plan.

In a filing to the Philippine Stock Exchange, PhilWeb announced that its shareholders have unanimously approved the management’s proposal to make a private placement of more than 300 million shares at no less than P20.00 per share.

The current market price of PhilWeb shares is P23.9 per share.

“With this war chest, the company will have the ability to go on an aggressive expansion program,” said the firm in its filing.

The 354.6 million shares are broken down into 81.4 million shares held by the company as treasury shares, 260.4 million shares are held by PhilWeb Casino Corporation and 12.9 million shares are held by Pure Corporate Investments Limited, both wholly owned subsidiaries of the company.

Earlier this year, PhilWeb reported a 3.8 percent dip in net income to P870 million in the full year 2015 but still remained positive for 2016.

“I am bullish about the coming year,” said PhilWeb president Dennis Valdes at the time, citing its partnership with the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp (PAGCOR) for its e-Games outlets.

“We have been a solid supporter of Pagcor for over a decade… In 2015, we remitted to Pagcor a total of PHP2.116 billion.”

By the end of 2015, the firm’s network included 268 e-Games outlets with more than 8,800 gaming terminals and around 90,000 registered members.

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