Manila, Philippines — Globe Asiatique Realty Holdings Corporation has decided to withdraw its planned initial public offering after BDO Capital and Investment Corporation resigned as the issue manager and lead underwriter.

In a letter to the Philippine Stock Exchange, Globe Asiatique Executive Vice President Dexter Lee said “GA has to respectfully request the withdrawal of our approval by the Exchange due to the unexpected resignation of our Issue Manager and Lead Underwriter.”

He added that, “as the Exchange would no doubt appreciate, the resignation of BDO Capital will cause obvious insurmountable difficulties to our ability to launch a successful initial public offering, especially at this stage of the process.”

Lee said they were caught by surprise by BDO’s resignation noting that “GA was not aware of BDO Capital’s intention to resign until we received their letter of resignation.”

Still, Lee said “GA believes very strongly in the soundness of its business plan and model which it disclosed to the Exchange as part of our application process.”

He insisted that “GA stil believes that it does offer an extremely attractive investment for the public and hopes to one day be able to realize its goal of launching a successful initial public offering on the Exchange.”

Meanwhile, Lee said they continue to have discussions with potential private investors at this stage and “we envisage reapplying to the Exchange for approval to launch another initial public offering at a later point in time.”

Prior to its withdrawal, Globe Asiatique had decided to shelve its P3.4 billion IPO – a day after it was approved by the PSE – “mainly due to the weak global market conditions.”

Lee noted that, following the recent global financial crisis, investors have been expecting the market to return to its normal state. Globe Asiatique’s would have been the first firm to test the market for an IPO this year.

The firm has recently been embroiled in a dispute with the Home Development Mutual Fund (Pag-IBIG Fund) over allegations that hundreds of borrowers were not the ones who were actually availing of loans for the purchase of houses from Globe Asiatique.