LISTED Pacific Online Systems Corp. (LOTO), which provides gaming solutions for the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO), yesterday said it wants to raise P200 million from the sale of treasury shares to finance its expansion.
“LOTO aims to raise P200 million from the proceeds to fund expansion and upgrade of its lottery systems and network,” LOTO Chairman and President Willy N. Ocier said in a mobile phone reply yesterday.
The company had earlier said it is doubling its capital spending to P450 million this year for systems and software upgrades, including the rollout of 350 additional terminals in the Visayas and Mindanao. As of April, it had 4,420 terminals selling various lottery games operated by PCSO. Total Gaming Technologies, Inc., a 99% owned subsidiary, has 1,321 terminals and sells Keno nationwide.
In a disclosure to the Philippine Stock Exchange yesterday, the company said its management and board of directors authorized the sale of “all or part of its treasury shares at prevailing market prices.”
“Pursuant to this authority, the Corporation has offered for sale part of its shares held in treasury through the facilities of the Exchange,” LOTO said in the disclosure.
“All sale transactions involving the treasury shares shall be disclosed to the Exchange as soon as the same are completed, together with our regular reports on the treasury shares,” the company said.
According to a previous filing with the bourse, the company last sold treasury shares in June last year, with 3.75 million shares left in treasury.
In the first quarter, LOTO’s consolidated net operating income went up 4% to P136 million year on year. The company said it expects lottery sales to reach P16 billion this year, a 5.26% increase from the record P15.2 billion posted in 2014.
Shares in the company were last traded on Friday at P18.38 apiece.
– Daphne J. Magturo, BusinessWorld Online