The Philippine Stock Exchange has sanctioned a move to delist domestic telecoms group Digital Telecommunications Inc (Digitel), effective 26 March, following its acquisition by Philippine Long Distance Telephone Company (PLDT). In a memo, the president of the bourse, Hans Sicat, said the board of the stock exchange had granted Digitel’s petition for voluntary delisting.
In October 2011 PLDT completed the acquisition of a 51.55% stake in rival telco Digitel after receiving regulatory approval for the deal valued at PHP69.2 billion (USD1.6 billion). In exchange, Digitel’s former owner JG Summit Holdings obtained a 12.9% stake in PLDT. The companies had originally hoped to complete the transactions by 30 June, but ran into delays caused by the wait for regulatory approval coupled with objections raised by Globe Telecom. Going forward, Digitel will be consolidated into the PLDT group and as such will not require a separate listing. The delisting was also made possible by last month’s announcement from PLDT that it has agreed to pay a total of PHP600 million to minority shareholders of Digitel who agreed to sell their shares to the larger firm at PHP1.66 each. In total, 13% or 374 million Digitel shares are to be paid in cash, and 87% or 2,514 million shares are to be paid in PLDT common shares.