Ayala Land sells P3.2-B worth of AREIT in block sale

Ayala Land [ALI 29.00, down 2.4%; 121% avgVol] [link] disclosed that it sold 98 million common shares of AREIT [AREIT 33.00, down 3.4%; 848% avgVol] in a private placement block sale at a price of P32.45/share. ALI said that the transaction was two times oversubscribed at the clearing price, which was 5% under AREIT’s closing price from the previous day. The transaction raised P3.18 billion for ALI and increased AREIT’s public float to facilitate the planned property-for-share swap between ALI and AREIT.

MB bottom-line: While I didn’t know exactly when this second block sale would happen, I did know that it was going to happen and I speculated back in January that it would probably come as a surprise and at a discounted price to AREIT’s market price at the time. Here’s a link to that analysis if you’re interested. At the end of the day, the first sale was at a 7.2% discount whereas this one was only at 5.0%, and the public float is now prepped to handle the SEC’s eventual approval of the transaction (whenever that happens) without plunging AREIT’s shareholders into chaos and confusion like what happened to SP New Energy [SPNEC 1.05, down 0.9%; 85% avgVol] when the SEC approved its share swap and caught Leandro Leviste’s management team flat-footed.

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