Axelum Resources [AXLM 2.30, up 0.9%; 16% avgVol] [link], the self-proclaimed “leading fully-integrated manufacturer and exporter of best-in-class coconut products”, announced yesterday that it had opened a 100-bed secondary-level hospital in Misamis Oriental, Mindanao. According to the press release, the hospital is a “state-of-the-art medical center”, offering a “comprehensiv e suite of services” from an emergency room to hemodialysis and neonatal care. The company said that it launched the hospital through its “civic affiliate”, AMDG Foundation and that it is in line with AXLM’s “overarching goal” to “combat poverty through livelihood, education, and now healthcare.”
MB bottom-line: I think this one took a lot of people by surprise, and perhap s rightfully so. This is probably the first time that investors have been introduced to AXLM’s “overarching goal” of poverty alleviation. The press release even sort of implies that this healthcare venture is a bit outside the original scope of that (until now) unspoken goal. It’s the first piece of news that I see attached to the AMDG Foundation, and a CTRL-F for it turns up noth ing in the last few AXLM quarterly and annual reports. A search of AXLM’s website turns up only one hit, but that was for “AMDG International Holdings”, not this foundation. So what do we do with this news that the coconut people are doing hospitals now? Well, it’s important to recognize that this was something done by an affiliate of AXLM, not by AXLM proper. The entity is just a n affiliate, and that implies that AXLM holds a minority interest in the entity. All that said, we still don’t know how much money AXLM put toward this venture, if AXLM has any operational obligations that would require additional money to be transferred to the venture, or if AXLM shareholders will stand to profit from the ongoing operation of the hospital or any potential sale in the future. I applaud any move that potentially improves healthcare outcomes for Filipinos, but it was a weird look for AXLM to take credit for this in the first-person.
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