LISTED Jollibee Foods Corp. (JFC) plans to raise at least $300 million through a dollar-denominated senior unsecured guaranteed notes issuance to refinance debt.
“The $300 million is the minimum if you want to be listed in indexes,” JFC Chief Financial Officer Richard Shin said in a virtual briefing on Tuesday when asked about the planned issuance.
“We don’t have just local investors. We also have international investors. The debt capital market is very excited because we’re a very low credit risk company. If you go lower than that, it’s very hard to get attraction from some of the larger investors,” he added.
Mr. Shin also said JFC would issue senior bonds instead of perpetual bonds.
“The reason for that is it’s more cost-effective as a senior bond versus a perpetual bond. Our covenants are all in a very good place. We want to do what’s best for shareholders by securing the lowest cost,” he said.
“This pertains to our perpetual bond amounting to $396 million that was due in January… We’ve taken $96 million out of the $396 million and converted that into very favorable rate term peso loans onshore,” he added.
On Monday, JFC said it tapped multiple banks for a planned Regulation S five-year US dollar-denominated senior unsecured guaranteed notes issuance.
Regulation S issuances are securities offered outside the United States that are not registered under the US Securities Act or any US state securities laws.
Mr. Shin said JFC would use the proceeds from the issuance for refinancing.
“It’s just refinancing what’s coming up for maturity. Most of our businesses have shifted already or are shifting to the franchise model,” he said.
“Going forward, we’ll have fewer and fewer capital expenditure (capex) requirements for store expansions,” he added.
Jollibee Worldwide Pte. Ltd., a wholly owned subsidiary of JFC, appointed JP Morgan Securities Asia Pte. Ltd. and Morgan Stanley Asia Pte. as joint global coordinators and bookrunners for the issuance.
It also tapped BPI Capital Corp. and Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corp. Ltd. (HSBC) Singapore branch as joint lead managers and bookrunners.
For 2025, JFC allocated a capex budget of P18 billion to P21 billion to support its target of opening up to 800 new stores.
As of end-2024, JFC operates 9,766 stores worldwide, including 3,382 in the Philippines and 6,384 international branches.
JFC shares dropped by 3% or P7.20 to P232.80 apiece on Tuesday. — Revin Mikhael D. Ochave
