IN BRIEF

purchase violation BANK of the Philippine Islands said Thursday it was allowed to pay a smaller fine of P30 million for its failure to get regulatory confirmation for its stock purchase and option plan in 2013. BPI said in a disclosure to the stock exchange the Securities and Exchange Commission granted its request to reduce the penalty to P30 million from the previous assessment of P135 million.

“The Securities and Exchange Commission in its letter dated 08 February 2023 informed Bank of the Philippine Islands, that the commission en banc, in its meeting on 07 February 2023, granted the request of the bank to reduce the penalty to [30,000,000.00 for omitting to secure SEC’s confirmation of exemption from registration for its 2013-2019 Executive Stock Purchase Plan and Executive Stock Option Plan,” it said.

BPI remains one of the biggest banks in terms of assets. In 2022, it posted a record net income of P39.6 billion, or 66 percent higher than in 2021, driven by strong loan growth, higher net interest margin, lower provisions and a gain from a property sale in the second quarter. This translated into a return on equity of 13.14 percent and return on assets of 1.59 percent. Julito G. Rada

SPNEC expects to complete

P2.8-b stock rights offering SP NEW Energy Corp. said Thursday it plans to complete its P2.8-billion stock rights offering to proceed with the planned share swap with parent Solar Philippines Power Project Holdings Inc. SPNEC said in a stock exchange filing it expects the partially-paid SRO shares to be fully paid by shareholders on or before March 5, based on indications of interest for the company’s shares. The company said if the SRO shares would remain unpaid by the shareholders, Solar Philippines would purchase the remaining shares at P1.50 apiece. SPNEC conducted a SRO for 1.875 billion shares in September 2022, of which 1.127 billion were fully paid and 748.024 million were partially paid by shareholders, with 25-percent downpayments. The due date on the balance was initially set on Dec. 5, 2022 but was later moved to March 5, 2023. As of Dec. 22, 2022, the company still had 578.768 million remaining partially-paid SRO shares.

“We are grateful to our public shareholders for believing in the value of our company’s shares. With the improved market conditions this year, we hope this will bring forth a positive feedback loop, by enabling the completion of our SRO, and in turn enabling our share swap, private placements and project developments,” said Solar Philippines founder Leandro Leviste. Jenniffer B. Austria

Israeli firm spending $34m in East-Palawan project

companies to ask for a TRO and writ of injunction from the CA.

The CA’s 13th Division granted WPI to SPPC on its 2019 power supply agreement with Meralco involving 670 megawatts of supply. This prevented Meralco from implementing the order of the ERC to honor their fixed-rate PSA. SPPC ceased to supply Meralco effective Dec. 7, 2022, following the CA’s grant of a 60-day temporary restraining order last year.

The CA said the grant of the WPI suspended the continued implementation of the PSA but did not terminate it.

Alena Mae S. Flores

ISRAELI company Ratio Petroleum, the operator of Service Contract No. 76, is looking at a projected minimum expenditure of $34.35 million to develop the East-Palawan Basin, the Department of Energy said Thursday. The capital expenditure will be used for studies, data gathering and drilling activities over the initial seven-year contract duration. SC 76 is located in the northern side of the East-Palawan Basin covering an area of 648,000 hectares, with water depths ranging from 80 to 1,700 meters.

Under Ratio Petroleum’s approved phased work program, the company has seven years in exploration period to be undertaken in three phases. The first phase covers the acquisition of 2D seismic data, which began on Oct. 17, 2018. The second phase consists of the acquisition of 3D seismic data that would further refine the image of the area’s subsurface geology covering the most prospective clastic and carbonate leads. For the third phase, the drilling of one exploration well would commence to ascertain the presence of oil and gas in the area. Alena Mae S. Flores