HARBOR STAR CUTS INITIAL PUBLIC OFFERING PRICE TO P1.88 PER SHARE
Harbor Star Shipping Services Inc., a tugboat operator planning to conduct an initial public offering next month, further reduced its IPO price to P1.88 from an original P3.27 apiece.
“We would like to inform the Philippine Stock Exchange that the final offer price of the IPO is P1.88 per share, amounting to a total of P341 million,” Harbor Star president and chairman Geronimo Bella Jr. said in a letter to PSE.
Harbor Star early this month announced it was pushing through with the planned maiden offering, which was originally scheduled in July. It lowered the indicative maximum offer price to P2.57 per share from P3.27 due to the current market conditions.
Harbor Star said it was looking at an offering period of between Oct. 16 and 23, 2013 and a listing date of Oct. 30.
The tugboat operator would be the third company to be listed this year. The first two were Philippine Business Bank and Asia United Bank.
Harbor Star, according to the offer terms approved by the Philippine Stock Exchange, plans to sell 181.6 million in primary common shares, representing 30 percent of the company’s issued and outstanding common shares.
It plans to allocate 60 percent of the shares to the general public and 30 percent to trading participants. The remaining 10 percent would be allotted for local small investors.
Harbor Star plans to use the proceeds from the IPO to acquire tugboats for domestic and international expansion and refleeting, acquisition of landing craft tank barges and anchor handling tug supply and for debt retirement.
Harbor Star also specializes in ship salvage, wreck removal, firefighting, oil spill abatement and recovery, handling hazardous chemical, deep sea towing diving and underwater services.
The company currently operates a fleet of 27 tugs. The tugs are currently being used at the major ports of Bataan, Batangas, Quezon, Cebu, Dipolog, Iloilo, Cagayan de Oro, Bohol, Leyte and Davao.
The tugs are mainly used to transfer various products, including oil, petroleum and mineral products from larger to smaller vessels capable of entering shallow draft ports.