MANILA, Philippines – The consortium seeking to buy out minority shareholders of Metro Pacific Investments Corporation (MPIC) hiked its tender offer by 12.3%, after its earlier valuation was deemed too low by analysts.

Analysts, however, still think the pricing of P5.20 per share, which is higher than the earlier offer of P4.63, is still low.

MPIC is seeking to delist from the Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE). To do this, the consortium, consisting of Metro Pacific Holdings, GT Capital Holdings, Mit-Pacific Infrastructure Holdings, and MIG Holdings, will have to buy most of the 36.6% of common shares held by minority shareholders.

“We regard this new offer as the best and final price the bidders are able to deliver to MPIC’s minority shareholders,” First Pacific executive director Christopher Young said.

The updated price is a 37% premium over the one-year volume weighted average price of common shares and P0.10 higher than the top end of the P3.37 to P5.10 price range provided by independent financial advisor Unicapital.

Investment houses like COL Financial told clients that the tender offer is still a steep 48% discount to the net asset value estimate and a 41% discount to the future value of the stock.

“The tender offer price is just at a 4% premium to the market value of MPI’s 47.5% stake in [Meralco] of P5 per share. As such, from a valuation perspective, we deem the tender offer price of P5.20 per share to be too low,” said an alert from a COL Financial investor read by Rappler.

But COL Financial told shareholders “who could not afford to risk their investments getting delisted” to sell or subscribe to the tender.

Meanwhile, a fund manager of another investment house told Rappler that stockholders should weigh the risks given what seems to be MPIC’s final offer. This sweetened deal, while not the best according to the manager, is already a signal that the company listened to minority shareholders.

Should the voluntary delisting push through, there will be no more avenues for minority shareholders to sell their shares through the PSE.

MPIC shareholders will vote on its delisting application on August 8 in a special stockholders’ meeting. The tender offer is expected to begin shortly after the approval and will last 20 business days. – Rappler.com