By James A. Loyola

Robinsons Retail Holdings, Inc., through its wholly-owned subsidiary Robinson’s Incorporated, has increased its stake in Robinsons Convenience Stores, Inc. (RCSI) which owns the local Ministop franchise.

In a disclosure to the Philippine Stock Exchange, RRHI said it has entered into a share purchase agreement with Mitsubishi Corporation for the sale of the latter’s shares in RCSI.

The transaction involves Robinson’s Incorporated’s purchase of shares from Mitsubishi Corporation which is equivalent to approximately an 8 percent stake in RCSI. Robinsons Retail’s effective ownership in RCSI increased from 51.0 percent to 59.1 percent.

Furthermore, Mitsubishi Corporation sold its remaining 4 percent stake to Japan-based partner, Ministop Co., Ltd., also increasing the latter’s stake to 40.9 percent.

“We remain fully committed in keeping and growing our convenience store business. The CVS format is the fastest growing retail channel in the region and we intend to take advantage of this trend,” said RRHI President Robina Y. Gokongwei-Pe.

RCSI is the exclusive master franchisee of Ministop in the Philippines. To date, there are 492 Ministop branches in key areas of Metro Manila, Luzon, and Visayas.

For the six-month period ended June 2018, Ministop generated total system-wide sales amounting to P4.5 billion with merchandise sales of P3.0 billion.