Melco Resorts and Entertainment (Philippines) has suspended trading on the Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE) following completion on Monday of the crossing over of shares from its recent tender offer.
Providing an update to proceedings in a filing, MRP said that MCO (Philippines) Investments Limited, a subsidiary of Melco International Development, is now expected to hold a total of 5,570,233,532 MRP Shares representing approximately 97.9% of its outstanding share capital stock of MRP. That leaves the public float at just 2.1% – well below the minimum 10% public ownership requirement under PSE rules.
Trading has been suspended as a result.
MRP had originally planned its tender offer as a means of delisting from the PSE but stated in October it had reversed that decision due to a series of investor concerns. It added at the time that the tender offer would proceed instead for the purpose of increasing the shareholding of MCO in the company.
“The change of purpose for the tender offer, which led to the withdrawal of the petition to delist by MRP on 19 October 2018, is aimed at alleviating certain investors’ concerns that the potential delisting may exert undue pressure on their decision process related to the acceptance of the tender offer,” MRP stated.
Shares were offered at a tender price of Php7.25 per share.