SL Agritech Corp. (SLAC) is planning an initial public offering to raise up to P2 billion by the third or fourth quarter of the year to finance its seed production expansion.

SLAC believes the IPO will enable the company to expand not only locally but internationally. Expansion will be at its existing seed production areas in Indonesia and Bangladesh and potentially in Cambodia and India.

"It may be after the election," said SLAC Chairman Henry Lim Bon Liong in a press briefing. "The market will be more robust (then), and SLAC will be a good company to investment in being an agricultural company."

Antonio B. Herbosa, Center for Global Best Practices managing director and SLAC IPO adviser, said the company may offer to the public 10 to 26 percent of its equity. It will lower its share's par value from P100 to P1 each and raise the number of shares from three million to one billion shares.

The company claims to capture 80 percent of the 200,000-hectare hybrid rice market in the Philippines.

It has seed production in Indonesia, 3,000 hectares and in Bangladesh, 250 hectares which will be expanded to 1,000 hectares. It is also entering in a joint venture with an Indian company in order to start a seed production there. Its registration for seed propagation is on-going in Vietnam and Cambodia.

"We're listing SL because it is the one that has the potential in the international market. And the rice market is big. The Indian market is very big," Lim said.

SLAC is affiliated with the Sterling Group. The company is also putting up a rice mill in Talavera, Nueva Ecija with a 10 metric ton (MT) per hour capacity. This makes the company an integrated rice firm engaged in seed production to rice milling and distribution.