Merkado Barkada
January 31, 2022 | 8:30am
Arsenio Ng’s holdco disclosed the results of a “special” ATN Holdings [ATN 0.77 13.24%] board meeting on Friday, and in doing so revealed that ATN plans to IPO a subsidiary, ATN Philippines Solar Energy Group, Inc., “by way of introduction”.
The board said that it would look to develop a plot of land that it owns in Rizal into a “50 – 100MW Solar PV Project” through a joint venture agreement with “key energy partners”.
The board also authorized the company to “co-invest” P2 billion with Transpacific Broadband Group Int’l, Inc. [TBGI 0.38 2.74%], another company owned by Mr. Ng, in a consortium to be formed with “the winning bidder of the Meralco competitive selection process (CSP) of renewable solar energy under a 20-year contract”.
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ATN’s stock price has basically doubled in the past two weeks, on the heaviest volume the stock has seen in over 3.5 years, rising from P0.40/share to as high as P0.80/share in Friday’s trading.
ATN had been trading in the dumps ever since a late-November shareholder’s meeting ratified a massive subscription by Ng of authorized but unissued capital stock at P0.20/share (the stock was trading at P0.90/share at the time).
Was there a leak of non-public information that caused such a buy-up of ATN’s stock, or is this just a brilliant speculative play on the part of traders to recognize that ATN was about to engage in a new hype cycle featuring something about “solar power”, which just so happens to be the two hottest buzzwords on the market right now.
Any company can point to an empty plot of land and say “maybe we’ll IPO the subsidiary that owns that, after someone else develops it into something for us in a JV”.
Be careful.
I’m not saying that ATN isn’t planning to pursue the deal, or that they’re being deceitful in any part of this disclosure, but I am saying that simply saying these things doesn’t make any of it real.
They’ve got a plan, and a solar power glint in their eyes that might be hard to see behind the dollar-signs.
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