30/05/2026
Injap Sia’s MerryMart Reckoning
DoubleDragon’s tender offer gives MM shareholders an exit. For many, it also turns a paper loss into something harder to ignore.
When MerryMart Consumer Corp. listed in June 2020, the pitch was simple, timely, and seductive: a home-grown grocery chain, backed by Edgar “Injap” Sia II’s reputation for scaling Mang Inasal, would ride the pandemic-era appetite for essential retail and roll out a national network of stores. The company sold 1.594bn primary shares at ₱1.00 apiece, raising about ₱1.6bn in gross proceeds, with the proceeds earmarked for store expansion, distribution centers, and working capital. There were no selling shareholders in the IPO; this was a growth-capital story, not an exit.
Six years later, that story has been repriced. DoubleDragon Corporation has launched a tender offer for MerryMart shares at ₱0.48 per share, following its planned acquisition of 2.658bn MM shares, or 35% of MerryMart, from Injap Investments Inc. The tender offer covers up to 4.937bn shares, or the remaining 65%, at the same price and on the same terms: half cash and half in newly issued, currently unlisted DoubleDragon shares valued at ₱9.30 apiece. The tender offer runs from May 18 to June 16, 2026, with settlement scheduled for June 24, 2026.
For shareholders, the arithmetic is unkind. The tender price is 52% below the IPO price. For those who bought near MerryMart’s speculative zenith in early 2021—when the stock briefly traded around the ₱8 level and closed the week of January 4–8, 2021, at ₱7.69—the offer price represents a collapse of roughly 94% from that closing peak.
MerryMart’s share-price history is a miniature of a market cycle: scarcity, story, momentum, disillusionment. Its IPO arrived at an odd moment. The Philippines was deep in the pandemic, but essential retail had become a refuge for investors. MerryMart’s small public float, franchising narrative, and association with Sia’s earlier entrepreneurial success made it a convenient vessel for optimism. In September 2020, a tie-up with FoodPanda for “dark grocery” services became a market catalyst, with analysts at the time attributing share-price activity to investor enthusiasm for the company’s adaptation to the “new normal”.
By January 2021, the enthusiasm had become more generalized. A vaccine-and-reopening rally lifted markets, and MerryMart surged with other retail favorites. On the first trading day of 2021, the stock jumped 29.3% to ₱7.99, according to Manila Standard, while the PSE’s weekly report later showed MerryMart closing the January 4–8 week at ₱7.69, up 24.43% for the week. Notably, the PSE weekly report marked the rally with “No Disclosure,” suggesting the peak was driven by market momentum rather than a fresh company announcement.
The tender offer now imposes a colder discipline. An independent fairness opinion by FTI Consulting valued MerryMart at ₱0.34–₱0.56 per share using discounted cash flow analysis, with a VWAP cross-check of ₱0.46–₱0.72 per share. On that basis, ₱0.48 sits inside the fair-value range. The same report valued DoubleDragon at ₱8.94–₱12.36 per share, with the tender consideration implying ₱0.24 in cash plus 0.0258 DD share per MM share. Read more: https://accuretti.blogspot.com/2026/05/injap-sias-merrymart-reckoning.html
