Garcia-led weapons and military equipment supplier Asia Defense and Armament Corp. acquired 71.59 million shares or nearly 48 percent of the newly issued private placement shares, which were priced at a small discount of P3.02 apiece.
Asia Defense is licensed to deal and import firearms and firearm accessories for the Philippine National Police. It also supplies military-grade equipment, vehicles, and aircraft, its website showed.
Garcia, the executive chair of DFNN, will control about 25.76 percent of the firm after the transaction.
The rest of the shares were acquired by management consultancy firm Nautilus International Management Corp., which was established in March last year.
Nautilus will own 16.37 percent of DFNN after the transaction.
As a result of the private share placement, DFNN’s public float will fall to 52.35 percent from 76.40 percent.
Previously, DFNN said the fresh funding will be used to pay debts, expand the business by venturing into cybersecurity and artificial intelligence and potentially create or acquire new gaming platforms.
Last February, DFNN announced a partnership with tycoon Henry Sy Jr.’s Data Lake Inc. to help boost the latter’s sale of Starlink, the satellite broadband business of American tech tycoon Elon Musk.
Miguel R. Camus has been a reporter covering various domestic business topics since 2009.
