Insider Spotlight
Dominion will pay Ramos family-linked Anglo Philippine Holdings P857 million for subscription rights to 727.2 million Atlas shares and assume P2.39 billion still owed to Atlas, bringing its total commitment to about P3.25 billion.
The transaction works out to an effective cost of about P4.47 per share, well below Atlas’ P15.90 closing price on Friday, although the shares stem from a subscription made by Anglo in 2017 rather than a purchase at current market prices.
Deal talks were first reported by InsiderPH.
Copper bet
The investment gives Dominion significant exposure to Atlas at a time when expectations are building around the miner’s production and earnings outlook.
Foreign brokerage CLSA recently initiated coverage of Atlas with an “outperform” rating and a P46 target price, saying the company could double output over the next three years as work to widen its mine pit and remove overburden nears completion.
CLSA expects Atlas to return to profitability in 2026 and benefit from strong copper prices, while noting that its reserves could support another 26 years of operations.
Atlas operates the Toledo copper mine in Cebu through Carmen Copper Corp., with copper accounting for about 86 percent of revenue and gold providing another source of earnings.
Bigger mining play
The Atlas deal is separate from SM Investments Corp.’s existing roughly 34.1 percent stake in Atlas, which market insiders previously said could eventually be injected into Dominion.
Dominion is also being studied as a potential vehicle for the Tampakan copper-gold project in South Cotabato, backed by the Sy and Consunji families and considered one of Southeast Asia’s largest undeveloped copper-gold deposits.
—Edited by Miguel R. Camus
