SL Agritech advances rice seed production

SL Agritech Corporation (SLAC), Philippines’s biggest hybrid rice seeds producer, has advanced its plan to start producing rice seeds in China.

SLAC Chairman Henry Lim said the company “has signed a foreign partnership in China” to start the production of seeds in the country.

“We are in talks with a company. It’s the company called Hongzhi. It’s a publicy listed company. [We will have] a partnership to produce hybrid rice seeds,” Lim said. “This will be a five-year plan.”

Lim said China has available large plants for rice seed production that SLAC can tap to boost its import business.

Meantime, Lim said the company may conduct another fund-raising activity next year before finally pursuing plans to do an initial public offering (IPO) at the Philippine Stock Exchange.

“We are looking forward to a very healthy bottomline. If we could double again our bottomline by end of our fiscal year, which is in May, it depends, if it turns out that the results are positive, then we will put a market capitalization and then go IPO,” Lim told reporters.

He said the company may raise another R2 billion in the first half of 2017, next to the R1.5 billion it just raised last week through the issuance of short-term commercial papers.

Lim said that the bulk of the proceeds from the issuance will bankroll the development of the company’s newest rice seed processing center in Davao del Sur.

In an earlier interview, Lim said the company was looking to raise around R7 billion to R8 billion through the IPO, selling as much as 25 percent of the company, way above the local bourse’ current required public float level of 12 percent.