In a new deal prospectus dated April 3, the Philippines’ biggest solar power producer cut the proceeds from its upcoming IPO by P5 billion, or 10 percent, to P7.9 billion.
CREC, led by CEO Oliver Tan, maintained the original indicative IPO price of P3.88 per share.
What was tweaked was the number of shares to be sold. From 2.9 billion common shares, including over-allotments, CREC is now selling up to 2 billion shares or 20-23 percent of the firm to outside investors.
The latest offer involves 1.78 billion primary common shares and 267.86 million secondary common shares, which will be used for post-IPO price stabilization.
The company delayed its PSE listing due to uncertain market conditions. Another reason, it was later revealed, was the entry of the billionaire Sy family-led SM Investments in CREC’s subsidiary Citicore Energy REIT Corp.
SM acquired 28.8 percent of Citicore REIT last March for about P5 billion. Saavedra will use the funds to accelerate renewable power expansion.
Because of the delay, CREC will be the second company to list this year after OceanaGold Philippines’ P7.9 billion debut on May 7, 2024.
CREC has set a policy to declare 30 percent of the past year’s net income, the prospectus showed.
CREC revenues in 2023 rose over 40 percent to P2.96 billion while net income grew by 8.4 percent to P685 million.
Citicore will use P5.32 billion in IPO proceeds to expand its solar power portfolio until 2025 and P939 million for battery energy storage systems. Another P300 million was set aside for general corporate purposes.
CREC has seven solar operating assets with a gross installed capacity of 175.5 Megawatts.
It also lists eight solar projects worth P49 billion that are ready-to-build and under construction with a total installed capacity of 1,583 megawatts (MW).
These are the Batangas 1, Batangas 2, Pangasinan 1, Pangasinan 2, Pampanga 3, Quezon 1, Zambales 1 and Negros 2 solar projects.
So far, the Batangas 1 project has secured financing. The company is securing bank financing for six other projects.
On top of these, CREC lists 12 projects in “advanced development” with a total installed capacity of 1,426.8MW.
These are the Batangas 3, Batangas 4, Pampanga 4, Pampanga 5, Quezon 2, Bataan 2, Negros 1 (expansion), Cebu 1 (expansion) solar projects as well as the Iloilo CW 1, Bataan-Zambales CW, Pangasinan CW2, and Camarines Sur CW onshore wind projects.
Miguel R. Camus has been a reporter covering various domestic business topics since 2009.
