Business: SM Retail Bond Trading to Start on July 16 at PDEx
SM Investments Corporation on Friday said the Philippine Dealing and Exchange Corp. (PDEx) approved the company’s P25 billion worth of retail bonds for
trading starting July 16."The listing will allow bondholders to freely trade their bonds through accredited brokers between the listing date and the maturity of the bonds," SM Investments noted in its disclosure to the Philippine Stock Exchange.
Approved are fixed rate Series A bonds due 2014 and Series B bonds due 2016 with a combined value of P10 billion, and fixed rate Series C bonds due 2019 and Series D bonds due 2022 with a combined value of P15 billion.
SM Investments increased its retail bond issue to P15 billion from the initial P10 billion due to strong demand from retail and institutional investors, the company said in a disclosure Monday.
It was originally worth P5 billion, but demand prompted the company and its issue manager and underwriters to finally come up with P25 billion.
Given the highest – Triple A – rating by the Philippine Ratings Services Corporation, bonds "are of the highest quality with minimal credit risk, and extremely strong financial commitment from SM to meet its obligations," SM Investments said in a previous disclosure.
The bonds in scripless or electronic form are denominated in lots of P20,000.
"The proceeds of the issue will be used by SM to partially finance its capital expenditure requirements for the next five years and for general corporate purposes," the company added in its June 27 disclosure.* (GMA News)
