Martin Lorenzo groups up stakes in Central Azucarera De Tarlac

MANILA, Philippines – CAT Resources and Asset Holdings Inc., a company owned by businessmen Martin Lorenzo and Fernando Cojuangco, will acquire an additional 4.71% interest in Central Azucarera De Tarlac.

This will boost CAT’s stake in the Tarlac-based sugar mill company to 74.48%.

CAT’s main products are raw and refined sugar, with the mill and refinery process also producing molasses as a by-product. The combined captive molasses are further processed in the distillery to produce alcohol.

In a disclosure to the stock exchange, CAT said that the company has completed the tender offer to acquire remaining shares in the company.

At the end of the tender offer period, a total of 1.332 million shares or 4.71% of the total outstanding capital stock of CAT were tendered and accepted.

The tender offer period ended on September 30.

The tendered shares will be crossed and settled Wednesday, October 15.

CAT’s tender offer did not attract many minority investors largely because the tender offer price of P91 ($2.03*) per share, is lower compared the CAT’s closing price of P114 ($2.55) per share at the end of the tender offer period.

But CAT said it plans to keep the company listed with the Philippine Stock Exchange.

In August, CAT announced plans to acquire the remaining 8.481 million shares, representing 30.03% of CAT’s issued and outstanding shares held by minority shareholders.

In a disclosure to the stock exchange, CAT said the company’s major shareholders, namely the families of Don Pedro Cojuangco and Jose Cojuangco Jr, Reyes family, Teopaco family, Aquino family, and the Lopa family have agreed to sell all their total 19.772 million shares at P91 ($2.03) per share to CAT.

Based on the filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, CAT was incorporated by Lorenzo, Cojuangco, Vigor Mendoza, Nicanor Lizares, and Fernan Victor Lukban.

Lorenzo sold his restaurant chain Pancake House to Max’s Group of Companies while Cojuangco, son of Don Pedro, is currently the vice president and chief operating officer of CAT.

CAT also plans to venture into industrial and residential development while pursuing expansion of the company’s sugar milling and processing business.

Tarlac Development Corporation of the Cojuangco clan – the maternal family of President Benigno Aquino III – acquired sugar mill Central Azucarera de Tarlac from its original Spanish owners in 1957 using money from the government.

The government gave the family control over the 6,000-plus hectare estate on the condition that the lands would be distributed to farmers after 10 years.

But until the April 24, 2012, Supreme Court decision, Hacienda Luisita had evaded distribution. – Rappler.com

($1 = 44.81)