Philippine retailer SSI sets IPO indicative price at 7 to 7.5 pesos/shr

MANILA, Oct 15 (Reuters) - Philippine specialty retailer SSI Group Inc has set an indicative listing price of 7.00 to 7.50 pesos per share, IFR reported, as it looks to raise as much as $166 million in the country's third and biggest initial public offering this year. SSI cut the maximum price from the previously announced 12.50 pesos per share. Fresh capital would support the company's expansion plans to exploit rising consumer spending in the fast-growing Philippine economy, despite anxieties over a global economic slowdown. The Philippine retailer of upscale brands such as Hermès, Prada and Gucci will sell up to 993.8 million shares, including the over-allotment option of 129.6 million shares, worth 7.45 billion pesos ($166 million) at the maximum indicative price. Six cornerstone investors will be buying 335.6 million shares, or 38.8 percent of the base size, said IFR, a Thomson Reuters publication. They are Capital Research, Macquarie Funds, BPI Asset Management, Government Service Insurance System, Havenport Asset Management and York Capital. Books will close on Oct. 22 and listing on the Philippine Stock Exchange is set for Nov. 7. SSI Group, which retails 103 international brands in the Philippines and operates convenience stores through the FamilyMart chain, tapped HSBC, Credit Suisse (Singapore) Ltd, and BPI Capital Corp to manage the IPO. The Philippines is Southeast Asia's third best performing stock market this year, with the benchmark index up about 18 percent, behind share markets in Thailand and Vietnam. (Reporting by Neil Jerome Morales in Manila and S. Anuradha of IFR in Singapore; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)