Citicore defers P12.9-b IPO, listing to second quarter

By Jenniffer B. Austria – February 20, 2024, 7:30 pm
from manilastandard.net

Citicore Renewable Energy Corp. (CREC) said Tuesday it is delaying its planned P12.9-billion initial public offering (IPO) to the second quarter of 2024 as it evaluates offers from various interested parties.

CREC said in a notice to the stock exchange it decided to adjust the indicative date of the offer from March 2024 to the second quarter of 2024.

“The company recently received inquiries from other institutions with regard to participation in the IPO,” CREC said.

“Following this, the company is carefully evaluating the offers from the various institutions, and hopes to finalize them at the soonest possible time,” it said.

CREC obtained regulatory approvals for its planned IPO as early as January this year.

The offer period was tentatively scheduled to run from March 11 to 15, 2024, while its tentative listing date is on March 22, 2024.

It plans to sell up to 2.9 billion common shares with an over-allotment option for another 435 million common shares at a maximum price of P3.88 apiece.

It plans to use the proceeds from the offering to partially fund its capital expenditures and pipeline development for solar energy plants and battery energy storage system (BESS) as well as general corporate purposes.

CREC has a pipeline of renewable energy projects in the Philippines in line with its goal of adding about 1 gigawatts (GW) of ready-to-build/under construction solar energy capacity each year through 2027.

It had installed capacity of 285.1 megawatts as of end-September 2023, accounting for 19 percent of country’s total installed capacity of 1.5 GW.

The company engaged UBS AG as sole global coordinator and joint bookrunner and BDO Capital & Investment Corp. as domestic lead manager and joint bookrunner for the IPO.

The Philippine Stock Exchange earlier said it was expecting six IPOs and P175 billion worth of equity deals this year.