Premium Leisure Corp to be voluntarily delisted

The PSE suspended trading in Premium Leisure Corp [PLC 0.74 suspended] [link] yesterday after PLC’s parent company, Belle Corp. [BEL 1.92, up 50.0%], announced that it would conduct a tender offer for all of PLC’s outstanding common shares “for the purpose of eventually causing the filing of an application for the voluntary delisting of PLC.” The suspension of trading for PLC shares will be lifted this morning, but the timeline for any tender offer will rely on the BEL board’s approval of the valuation report from the independent third-party valuation firm that BEL has engaged (First Metro). Once approved, BEL will be able to establish a price and timeline for the tender offer and we should get better clarity on the overall process.

 

MB bottom-line: Rumors of PLC’s privatization have been making the rounds on certain forums for a few months now, so this doesn’t come as a complete surprise, but it’s still a bit shocking. This is the second publicly traded company in the SM Investments [SM 983.50, up 0.4%] orbit to be privatized in recent memory (2Go was the other one), and once completed, it will be the second delisting this year on the PSE after Cebu Holdings was delisted as part of its merger with Ayala Land [ALI 32.30, down 2.7%] back on March 1. Like with any delisting, shareholders will not be required to participate in the tender offer; any shareholders that decline the offer (at whatever price they’ll decide based on the fairness opinion) will still hold shares of PLC after the tender offer ends and even after the delisting completes. Diamond-handed hodlers will just end up holding shares in a private company with no convenient market or exchange to facilitate a sale.

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