March 1, 2011
Purefoods completes share sale
San Miguel Pure Foods Co. Inc., the listed food unit of Philippine corporate giant San Miguel Corporation (SMC), has raised P15 billion (US$344.82 million_ from its preferred stock issuance, completing the country's biggest share sale in three years.
Purefoods has sold all 15 million preferred shares at the close of the two-week offer period on February 25.
Among the five issue managers were HSBC Corporation, RCBC Capital Corporation, SB Capital Investment Corporation and Standard Chartered Corporation. The sale
covered 15 million shares priced at PHP1,000 (US$22.98) each. Eduardo Francisco, president of BDO Capital and Investment Corp said the transaction went flawlessly as everything was sold and allocated well. The dividend rate was earlier set at 8
percent per annum.
Listing has been set on March 4.
Shares of Purefoods, an illiquid stock with a public float of 0.1 percent, lost 22.22 percent to PHP1,400 (US$32.18) each on Friday's close.
The share sale is the first tranche of a fund-raising effort planned to raise up to P50 billion for Purefoods, SMC president Ramon S. Ang said earlier.
The bulk of the proceeds is seen to fund Purefoods' diversification into power, water and other utilities to mirror the strategy of its parent company.
At present, Purefoods is one of the largest food companies in the Philippines, controlling about 44 percent of the poultry market, 63 percent of hotdog sales and 20 percent of the canned goods market.
Apart from the flagship Purefoods brand, the company also owns Magnolia, Monterey, Star, San Mig Coffee and B-Meg.
Revenues of the food giant rose 4 percent to PHP56.57 billion in the nine months to September last year while profit grew about 161 percent to PHP2.77 billion partly due to strong gains from the disposal of property, equipment and idle assets.
Purefoods decided to sell preferred shares after it failed last year to unload a minority stake to foreign and local groups.
The share sale was the biggest since 2007 when the government sold its 20-percent stake in Energy Development Corporation for US$372 million.
