Businessman Leandro Leviste is taking over money-losing Roxas Holdings Inc. for P5 billion, unveiling his biggest corporate purchase yet since selling control of his solar energy firm SP New Energy Corp. to the group of tycoon Manuel V. Pangilinan last January.
In a Facebook post, Leviste announced the signing of a term sheet to buy Roxas Holdings, controlled by Pangilinan-led First Pacific Group.
The deal will give his privately held firm Countryside Investments Holdings Corp. a 71.6 percent stake in Roxas Holdings, which has vast landholdings but also nearly P6 billion in debts and trade payables.
“Countryside's investment will help Roxas Holdings service debt to avoid bankruptcy, increase the tax revenues of the municipality of Nasugbu, and create more and better jobs for the benefit of local farmers and former sugar industry workers,” Leviste said.
Roxas Holdings, which owns 236 hectares of land in Nasugbu, Batangas, saw losses surge 85 percent to P367.3 million last December, the end of the first quarter of its fiscal year.
Last Feb. 28, the company permanently shuttered sugar refining operations at Central Azucarera Don Pedro due to “serious business losses”, ending 97 years of operations, its quarterly report showed.
Operations at San Carlos Bioenergy, Roxas Holdings’ bioethanol plant in Negros Occidental, were also discontinued and have been put up for sale, the report showed.
Leviste said Roxas Holdings has P4.4 billion in debts to lenders such as Bank of the Philippine Islands, BDO Unibank, and Land Bank of the Philippines. This is on top of trade payables worth P1.4 billion.
“This investment forms part of Countryside's plan to invest over P5 billion in the development of Leviste's home province of Batangas,” he said.
Pangilinan Group companies First Pacific Natural Resources Holdings BV and First Agri Holdings Corp. own 62.89 percent of Roxas Holdings, the company’s latest annual report showed.
The Elizalde-Roxas controlled Roxas and Co. Inc. (RCI) owns 20.57 percent of Roxas Holdings.
In recent months, Leviste also purchased 10 percent of RCI and an 8.5 percent stake in ABS-CBN Corp.
Miguel R. Camus has been a reporter covering various domestic business topics since 2009.
