Alaska Milk applies for delisting, shareholder to buy out stocks

A Philippine dairy company intends to delist from the Philippine Stock Exchange on Nov. 5 – when its majority shareholder buys out its remaining shares.   Alaska Milk Corporation (AMC) said it filed before the PSE its petition to delist all shares from the exchange.   Majority shareholder FrieslandCampina Investments Holdings Company Philippines Inc. (FC) – the local unit of Dutch-based Royal FrieslandCampina – sent Tuesday its final tender offer report in order to acquire AMC’s common shares by way of a block sale.    “The intended integration of AMC within FC and its multinational group of companies will provide AMC with access to the products developed by RFC which will strengthen AMC’s positions in all dairy categories,” FrieslandCampina Investments said in its tender offer.   The offer will run from Sept. 5 to Oct. 2, with BDO Securities Corp. as tender offer agent, Alaska Milk’s disclosure read.   Bidder FrieslandCampina Investments will acquire Alaska Milk’s common shares at P24 per share or P23.87 net of customary selling charges. As of Sept. 3, the local dairy giant had 14.9 million common shares on records, excluding the shares already held by FrieslandCampina Investments and its affiliate FrieslandCampina Werknemers B.V.   Thus, FrieslandCampina Investments would pay an estimated P358.6 million for the block sale.   The block sale will start Sept. 5 and end on Oct. 19, FrieslandCampina Investments noted in its tender offer.   Last March, Alaska Milk completed the sale of 535.7 million shares to Dutch dairy giant Royal FrieslandCampina. The transaction – valued at P12.86 billion or P24 per share – accounted for 60.8 percent of Alaska Milk’s shares outstanding.   Alaska Milk chairman and CEO Wilfred Steven Uytengsu said in May the capital market has not been that responsive to Alaska Milk as it was 17 years ago, thus “it is sensible enough to become a privately-held company again.”   The dairy company reported P363 million in net earnings in the first quarter, up 44 percent from P252 million. For 2011, full year net earnings totaled P1.1 billion, down 39 percent from P1.8 billion a year earlier.   AMC’s shares closed at P21.6 yesterday, from P22.4 in August 31. It currently has a market capitalization of 19.132 billion shares at a 31 percent public float level. — Marc Jayson Cayabyab/VS, GMA News