The board of AgriNurture Inc. (ANI), the agricultural company of billionaire Antonio Tiu, has confirmed the company’s intent to conduct a stock rights offering (SRO).
“The rights issue is intended to provide additional working capital to support the growth and strategic initiatives of the corporation’s core businesses. Management shall finalize the specific allocation of the proceeds for review and approval of the board,” the company said in its disclosure.
The said rights issue of the company was first announced in 2018.
An existing shareholder owning 2.5 shares shall be entitled to one stock rights share at an offer price of P1 apiece.
The number of shares to be offered was amended to 288 million shares from 307.3 million shares. The change is due to the re-computation of the number of shares which are eligible to participate in the SRO, the company said.
It said the current amendment supersedes all previous information disclosed by the company relating to its stock rights offering.
AgriNurture said its revenues in the first semester rose 29 percent to P2.31 billion from last year’s P1.79 billion.
For the second quarter alone, its revenues grew 14 percent to P1.1 billion from last year’s P965.85 million.
“The company continues to grow despite the impact of the pandemic on our operations,” Tiu said. “During these trying times, our revenues still grew 29 percent while recurring operating profit actually jumped by 70 percent.”
In the first six months of 2020, ANI booked a non-operating income amounting to P281.33 million mainly as a result of the increase in trademark valuation for the group’s “Big Chill” brand. Recurring operating profit grew 65 percent to P102.5 million from P61.87 million last year.
For the first semester, the group’s Philippine operations contributed 46 percent while sales from foreign operations accounted for 54 percent of consolidated sales.
Export sales grew 9 percent to P883.1 million from last year due to the stable selling prices of banana and coco juice in the international market, constant supply of raw materials and increase in demand of customers in China and the United States.
The company also said export sales of fruits rose significantly, in terms of volume and price, after the Chinese government lifted the lockdown. Also, sales for coco juice went up due to the increase in demand in the US.