On January 10 2022, the Board of Directors of Solar Philippines Nueva Ecija Corporation (SPNEC) approved to increase the company’s authorized capital stock from 10 billion shares to 50 billion shares, subject to stockholder and regulatory approvals.

This would prepare SPNEC for asset-for-share swaps with Solar Philippines and additional capital raises to expand its solar project portfolio, subject to third-party valuations and approvals. The company is planning to have further consultations and a stockholder’s meeting on this proposal.

This comes in light of strong investor interest in SPNEC’s stock, which had over Php 5 billion in trading over the past month and became the PSE’s best-performing IPO of 2021, closing the year up 28%.

“We are thankful for the level of interest in SPNEC, even as a single pre-operating project. At the same time, we note the feedback that adding our already operating or contracted projects would make SPNEC even more attractive. We wish to take this opportunity to give our public shareholders this option, in the interest of advancing SPNEC’s value and profitability,” said Solar Philippines founder Leandro Leviste.

“We see that other companies have successfully listed assets through share swaps, and we support SPNEC doing the same if that is what our public shareholders want,” Leviste added.

In 2013, Solar Philippines was founded to accelerate the adoption of solar energy in the Philippines. Since then, it has developed a pipeline of over 10 GW of solar projects, according to Department of Energy (DOE) figures. These include an operational 63 MW in Batangas in partnership with Korea Electric Power Corporation; 340 MW operating and under construction in Tarlac, Batangas, and Cavite in partnership with Prime Infra of the Razon Group; and several projects on the rooftops of SM malls.

In 2020, Solar Philippines signaled its strategy to accelerate its developments through strategic partnerships. This in support of the DOE’s increase of the Renewable Portfolio Standard target to 35% of the country’s energy that would need to be sourced from renewable energy by 2030, which would translate to the need to build over 20,000 MW of solar. According to the DOE’s figures as of December 2020, the Philippines had a total operating grid-connected solar capacity of 1,021 MW.