URC taps ING, Salomon for dollar notes offering

Universal Robina Corp. (URC), the flagship company of the Gokongwei family’s JG Summit Holdings, confirmed yesterday plans of issuing US dollar-denominated notes this year to take its regional expansion program in full throttle, although the terms of the offer are still being worked out.

In a disclosure to the Philippine Stock Exchange, URC said it has appointed ING and Salomon Smith Barney as joint bookrunners and lead managers for the offering.

"The offering will allow the company to take advantage of the current low interest rate environment for raising term financing," the URC statement said.

Last week, it was reported that URC had firmed up a $100-million, five-year bond float whose roadshow could start as early as this week. However, URC said this is still premature since the board of directors of URC "is still in the process of deliberating the corporation’s capital raising options for the ensuing year."

"It has yet to set a board of directors meeting for such purpose," URC said.

One of the country’s premier food and beverage companies – whose strength is in the branded snack food category – URC recently reported an outstanding financial performance for its fiscal year ending September.

Backed by a 12 percent growth in sales to P21.2 billion, URC’s net income rose 18.2 percent to P1.255 billion as of September 2002, boosted by the solid gains of its core branded consumer foods business, particularly from its international operations in Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore and China.

"We are greatly encouraged by the resilience of URC’s growth despite the constraints we faced in the domestic market, and the competition we encountered in our overseas markets," president and COO Lance Gokongwei said.

Its international operations pumped in a 29 percent growth in revenues while its domestic operations strengthened their leading market share position in the snack foods, candy, chocolate and biscuit categories.

Aside from exports to over 25 countries such as Taiwan, the US, Italy, Japan and the Middle East, the company has direct manufacturing presence in Thailand, Malaysia and China and distribution facilities in Hong Kong and Singapore.

URC, one of the largest food companies in the Philippines, contributes around 40 percent to JG Summit’s group revenues and 25 percent to bottom line earnings. The company manufactures and derives the bulk of its revenues on a wide range of branded consumer foods (Jack & Jill snacks, Tivoli ice cream, Presto creams, Great Taste coffee mixes, Cloud 9 and Nips chocolates, XO and Maxx candies, Payless and Nissin noodles, and Hunt’s canned products and sauces, among others).

Besides local market leadership in snack foods, candies and chocolates, URC also dominates the market for its other products such as day-old chicks and fish feeds from its agro-industrial and commodity food divisions.