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MANILA, Philippines — After a longstanding dispute between two crocodile-themed brands over their logos, the Supreme Court has ruled that there is no confusing similarity between the trademarks of French fashion giant Lacoste and Asia-based apparel brand Crocodile.
Converge [CNVRG 16.94, up 4.2%; 217% avgVol] [link] declared a special cash dividend of P0.18/share out of its FY23 unrestricted retained earnings, payable on October 10 to shareholders of record as of September 24. The dividend carries a yield of 1.1% based on the stock’s pre-announcement closing price. It’s the first dividend from CNVRG since its 2020 IPO. CNVRG is owned by Dennis "Pampanga Dennis" Uy (known on X as @TheFiberMaster). It listed at an IPO price of P16.80/share and peaked at around P44/share back in October 2021.
MANILA, Philippines — At least three dams in Luzon continue to release water to prevent the reservoirs from reaching spilling levels, the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (PAGASA) hydro-meteorology department said in its latest report.
Maynilad Water Services (MWS) President Ramoncito Fernandez said that MWS has a “franchise that requires [MWS] to list on or before January of 2027” [link], and that all of the group’s efforts (including a P15 billion bonds sale) have resulted in “the momentum building toward an IPO.” Mr. Fernandez said that “timing is crucial” and added, “the ideal window would be after the elections in 2025, or if not, then 2026. So it’s likely between the second half of 2026 and the first quarter of 2026.”MB BOTTOM-LINE: Nothing much to say about this. Sure, this is a potentially market-altering IPO that will be between P40 billion and P56 billion, but we’ve been talking about it in the “maybe late next year” context for nearly three years now. MWS has until January 2027 to actually get listed, so who’s to say Q1/26 doesn’t slip a few quarters more? I just hope that when they do list, it’s not similar to the clumsy legal apparatus that we got with the Synergy Grid [SGP 9.00 unch; 856% avgVol] legislative listing. Fingers crossed for a clean listing vehicle.
Top Line Business Development [TOP 0.78 pre-SEC] [link] filed paperwork with the SEC to conduct a November 2024 IPO. According to the preliminary prospectus from the company’s website, the deal is worth up to P3.16 billion through the sale of ~3.683 billion primary common shares and up to ~368 million secondary common shares as part of an over-allotment option at a price of up to P0.78/share.
RL Commercial REIT [RCR 5.70 ?0.9%; 225% avgVol] [link] declared a Q2/24 dividend of P0.0992, payable on October 4 to shareholders of record as of September 10. The dividend has an annualized yield of 6.96% based on the previous closing price, which is marginally higher than RCR's pre-dividend annualized yield of 6.95%. The total amount of the dividend is P1,064 million, which is 93% of the P1,147 million in distributable income that RCR reported for the quarter. Relative to RCR's IPO price, the dividend increased RCR's total stock and dividend return to 5.93%, up from its pre-dividend total return of 4.39%. RCR’s stock price is up 18.6% year-to-date. It has a TTM yield of 6.89% and an estimated yield of 6.95%.MB BOTTOM-LINE: It’s great to see RCR organically growing its dividend even before shareholders get access to the income from its massive P34 billion swap. It’s not a huge increase (+1.43% y/y, +0.20% q/q), but growth is growth (DDMPR shareholders don’t have any more tears to cry). The income from those new properties has been accruing to the benefit of RCR shareholders since April 1, 2024, but the parties will likely wait until after the swap is officially approved by the SEC and completed before any of that accrued cash will physically change hands. Logically this makes sense, because the shares that RCR issued to RLC won’t be officially transferred to RLC until the swap is approved. RLC wouldn’t want to miss out on getting its hands on a larger portion of that “new” Q2 RCR income.
Citicore Renewable Energy REIT [CREIT 2.89 ?0.7%; 44% avgVol] [link] declared a Q2/24 dividend of P0.049/share, payable on October 4 to shareholders of record as of September 10. The dividend maintains CREIT’s annualized yield of 6.78% based on the previous closing price. The total amount of the dividend is P321 million, which is 107% of the P300 million in distributable income that CREIT reported for the quarter. Relative to CREIT's IPO price, the dividend increased CREIT's total stock and dividend return to 33.53%, up from its pre-dividend total return of 31.61%. CREIT’s stock price is up 12.9% year-to-date. It has a TTM yield of 6.96%, and an estimated yield of 6.78%.MB BOTTOM-LINE: CREIT doesn’t always get the credit that it deserves for its stability and performance. PREIT’s odd performance aside (it’s up 11.8% since its December 2022 IPO), CREIT has been the top performer (+7.0%) in the REIT space since the onset of the inflationary plague that knee-capped even top-shelf REITs like AREIT (down 22.1%) and RCR (down 25.0%), and contributed to the declines in some of the bottom-shelf REITs like DDMPR (down 42.4%) and FILRT (down 58.2%). CREIT is immune to the POGO Problem (it doesn’t lease commercial office space), always has 100% occupancy, and has the best-developed asset injection ecosystem of anything on the market right now. Sure, something like AREIT has a deeper stable of potential injections, but nobody has a longer, more detailed plan than that which exists between CREIT and its parent, Citicore Renewable Energy [CREC 2.98 ?2.4%; 49% avgVol]. The pair have delivered multiple injections already, and (re)revealed their long-term roadmap through CREC’s prospectus. Does the distribution ratio look odd? You bet. But I’m working on an in-depth explainer with CREIT right now that I hope to publish in the coming days, so stay tuned!
MREIT [MREIT 12.94 unch; 113% avgVol] [link] declared a Q2/24 dividend of P0.2474/share, payable on August 30 to shareholders of record as of August 16. The dividend has an annualized yield of 7.65% based on the previous closing price (~7.60% pre-dividend). The total amount of the dividend is P692 million, which is 93% of the P744 million in distributable income that MREIT reported for the quarter. Relative to MREIT's IPO price, the dividend increased MREIT's total stock and dividend return to -1.38%, up from its pre-dividend total return of -2.92%. Cumulatively, MREIT has distributed 92.9% of its H1/24 distributable income. MREIT is up 5.2% YTD.