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UNIONBANK of the Philippines, Inc. set the final price for its stock rights offering (SRO) at P56.88 per share, a 36.65% discount from its Thursday close at the stock market.

The Aboitiz-led bank will offer 210.97 million shares and looks to raise P12 billion, it said in a disclosure to the local bourse on Thursday.

“The offer price was determined based on the volume-weighted average price of the bank’s common shares on the Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE) for each of the 15 consecutive trading days immediately prior to (and excluding) Jan 4, 2023 and applying a discount of 30%,” it said.

“The proceeds from the Stock Rights Offering will be used to fund the capital infusion to UnionDigital, loan availments by retail, corporate and commercial customers, other business growth opportunities, i.e. investment securities and other assets and/or general corporate purposes,” UnionBank added.

UnionDigital is the listed lender’s digital bank and was granted a license by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas in July 2021. It began operating in July 2022.

The offer period will run from Jan. 16 to 27, while the tentative listing date is on Feb. 6.

The bank said the entitlement ratio for the SRO is one rights share per 10.1536 common shares as of Jan. 12.

The offer price was initially set at a range of P54.48 to P58.38. The bank also reduced the number of shares on offer from 220.26 million shares.

UnionBank posted a net profit of P4 billion in the third quarter of 2022, higher by 17% from P3.4 billion in the comparable year-ago period.

This brought its nine-month net profit to P10.1 billion, which translated to a return on equity of 10.4%, reflecting the impact of an additional P40-billion capital from the lender’s stock rights offer in May 2022.

The bank’s shares closed at P89.80 apiece on Thursday, gaining P2.40 or 2.75% from the previous day’s finish. — AMCS

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