The Philippines' Now Corp, a telecoms, media and technology company considering making a bid to become the market's third major telco player, has secured approval to raise nearly 1 billion pesos ($18.7 million) via an issue of preferred shares.
The nation's Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has signed off on the proposed issue of 5 million convertible shares at a price of 100 pesos each, Business Mirror reported.
Now Corp plans to mainly use the proceeds from the offer to expand its Fiber in the Air branded broadband network for enterprises, related fiber infrastructure and for general corporate purposes.
The company is also considering the possibility of teaming up with a foreign telco and potentially domestic partners to bid for the third telco slot during a planned allocation.
Restructuring its equity through the share issue will allow the company to become more financially stable, potentially helping with this bid.
But the government's process for selecting the third player has been subjected to repeated delays and changes, and so it may be some time before the selection is complete.