Businessman Robert John L. Sobrepeña’s long suspended Metro Global Holdings Corp. (MGH) narrowly avoided being removed from the Philippine Stock Exchange via automatic delisting after its parent firm assigned a block of shares to a third party company.
In a stock exchange filing on Monday, MGH said its parent firm Fil-Estate Management Inc. (FEMI) transferred 55 million MGH common shares, worth P55 million, to Smart Share Investments Limited, a company based in Hong Kong, to partly settle a debt.
The transfer, involving 2 percent of MGH’s outstanding shares, was approved by the Bureau of Internal Revenue on July 26.
This brought MGH’s public float to 10.67 percent, making the company compliant with the Philippine Stock Exchange’s 10 percent minimum public ownership (MPO) rule.
This was also confirmed by the PSE on Monday.
“Given the company’s compliance with the requirements under the amended MPO Rule and the relevant guidelines, MGH shares will no longer be automatically delisted on August 5, 2024,” the stock exchange said.
