NHA suspends interest on housing loan payments
HOUSING loan borrowers can pay their obligations without any interest, even for those who pay late, a top official of the National Housing Authority (NHA) said on Tuesday.
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Alicia Vikander, Michael Fassbender welcome 2nd baby
MANILA, Philippines — Celebrity couple Michael Fassbender and Alicia Vikander welcomed their second child together.
Marcventures elects Augusto Serafica Jr. as new president
Marcventures Holdings [MARC 0.73, up 1.4%; 17% avgVol] [link] said that Augusto Serafica Jr. has been elected as its new president. Mr. Serafica has been a director of MARC since 2013, and at the time of his election, was the chairman of the board’s investment committee. MARC is owned and controlled by President Marcos’s cousin and current House Speaker Martin Romualdez. The company has significant mining interests in nickel, which it exports to China.
Skincare in haircare now a big beauty trend
MANILA, Philippines — If there is one core message the recent Watsons “Hair Goals” event had, it is that the scalp, too, is skin.
MEDCO tender offer price is P0.04/share
As covered in yesterday’s writeup [MB link], MEDCO Holdings [MED 0.17 ?50.0%; 2067% avgVol] has undergone a change of leadership (its parent company was acquired by Winter Dragon Limited (WDL)), and this change has triggered a mandatory tender offer for the remainder of the public float. MED updated the exchange yesterday to say that WDL intends to conduct its tender offer of the public float at P0.04/share [link].MB BOTTOM-LINE: This is not the Tender Offer Report that WDL must file to kick off the official tender process, just an expression of WDL’s intentions with respect to how it will proceed. All that said, the price listed is pretty funny. It’s 20% below the par value of the shares (par for MED common is ?0.05/share), and more importantly, it’s 75% below the current market price of MED shares, which (after a 50% ceiling pump yesterday) is ?0.165/share. Even if you eliminated the speculative tender offer interest, the tender offer price is still 64% below MED’s pre-ceiling price of ?0.11/share. MED’s not the most liquid stock, but it’s not like it’s been suspended for two decades. The closest that MED’s market price has come to the tender offer price was back in September when it briefly touched ?0.08/share during a low point that lasted approximately four months. The stock actively traded considerably higher than that on either end of that period. It’s going to be interesting to see how WDL defends its price. It will need to get a fairness opinion, but it’s not clear yet if the price suggested is the result of that process or if it’s just the placeholder that WDL is using, only to be replaced by whatever comes out of the official fairness opinion. It’s fair to say that, so far, the tender offer price doesn’t seem to have any relation to MED’s market price, which is something of a non-starter.
Covering Paris Olympics opening ceremony: rain, rain, memorable moments
PARIS – AFP's coverage of the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympics had been meticulously prepared for a year, with every detail scrutinized to determine the optimal position for the best shot or the best reportage.