Century Pacific Group teams up with Gokongwei family to buy P2.7-B stake in Shakey’s from Singapore’s Arran Investments

Shakey’s Pizza [PIZZA 9.48, up 3.0%; 264% avgVol] [link] disclosed that its “long-standing strategic investor”, Arran Investments (Arran), sold its 16.8% stake (283 million shares) in PIZZA to Century Pacific Group (CPG) and JE Holdings (JEH) for P9.50/share. According to the disclosure, CPG purchased 185 million shares to push its stake in PIZZA up to 62%, and JEH purchased 98 million shares to push its stake up to 14.9%. Arran is an affiliate of Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund, GIC, and teamed up with CPG to purchase the Shakey’s chain of pizza restaurants in 2016. JEH is an investment company owned by the Gokongwei Family; Lance Gokongwei currently serves on PIZZA’s board of directors.

MB bottom-line: This PIZZA sale caught me by surprise. There have been rumors swirling about Arran divesting from certain companies in the Philippines for over a month now, but whisper-wire was focused on Arran’s stake in Andrew Tan’s Emperador [EMI 20.95, up 0.2%; 107% avgVol]. Arran is a big fish in the PSE pond, and while it has recently been reducing its exposure to holdings like BPI [BPI 107.10, down 1.7%; 29% avgVol], it has also been pushing heavily into other industries like power generation through its big investment in ACEN [ACEN 5.38, up 3.1%; 251% avgVol] in the early stages of the pandemic. Thankfully, the sale doesn’t appear to have caught the Po Family by surprise, so it seems they were able to cobble together a little mini consortium to catch Arran’s shares (for a slight premium to market) in an orderly transaction. Remember when Warburg Pincus seemed to catch Dennis “Pampanga Dennis” Uy by surprise when it suddenly dumped its stake in Converge [CNVRG 9.88, up 5.2%; 86% avgVol] through block sales on the open market? This divestment was much more elegant in comparison.

-

Merkado Barkada is a free daily newsletter on the PSE, investing and business in the Philippines. You can subscribe to the newsletter or follow on Twitter to receive the full daily updates.