Nickel miner Global Ferronickel Holdings Inc. revived a plan to sell shares to finance expansion projects, an executive said Monday.
Global Ferronickel president Dante Bravo said in a text message the company filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission a registration statement involving the sale of up to 250 million shares.
The planned share sale could raise P800 million in proceeds, based on the stock’s closing price of P3.20 per share.
“We will issue up to 250 million shares. The price is still to be determined upon SEC approval of the registration,” Bravo said. He did not provide other details including the timetable for the offering.
Global Ferronickel’s planned share sale would be lower than its original plan in 2015.
The nickel mining firm, formerly Southeast Asia Cement Holdings Inc., said in 2015 it planned to raise up to P31.03 billion from the sale of 7.079 million shares at a maximum offer price of P4.38 apiece.
It later reduced the size of the offering to P21 billion by trimming down the number of offer shares to 4.98 billion, while maintaining the maximum offer price of P4.38 per share.
The fund raising activity was put on hold after the steep drop in the company’s share price. It said it would wait for its stock price to hit near P3 per share, before pushing through with the planned follow-on offering.
Global Ferronickel signed a cooperation agreement with China State-owned Enterprise, Baiyin Nonferrous Group Co. Ltd. in October 2016 for the construction of a $700-million stainless steel plant with an annual capacity of one million tons using lower grade nickel ore sourced in the Philippines.
Global Ferronickel is the second largest nickel producer in the Philippines and the largest single lateritic mine exporter in the world. It has mining operations in Cagdianao, Surigao del Norte.
The nickel mining firm is also set to start production in its 343-hectare Ipilan mine in Palawan.
