SEC okays SFI property dividend

Food and beverage giant RFM Corp. completed another step in its transformation to a branded food business with the recent approval by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) of the upstreaming of Swift Foods, Inc. (SFI) as a property dividend to RFM’s shareholders.

This means SFI, one of the country’s dominant chicken producers, is no longer a subsidiary of RFM, but owned directly by its shareholders as a separate, publicly-listed corporation.

A total of 774,084,357 common shares of SFI, previously owned by RFM and representing 96.44 percent of the poultry company, are now being distributed to shareholders at the approximate ratio of one SFI common share for every two RFM common shares held.

The declaration of SFI as a property dividend was approved by the RFM board earlier this year, and subsequently approved in a special shareholders meeting in March.

In explaining the move, executive vice president Felicisimo Nacino, Jr. said RFM needed to focus its resources on building its branded food and beverage units in its bid to achieve or maintain market leadership in a number of highly-competitive product categories.

Over recent months, the local consumer market has seen RFM’s aggressive marketing and media campaigns for its White King hotcake mixes, Fiesta spaghetti, Saucy-Mix instant noodles, Sunkist fruit juice drinks, Selecta Moo flavored milk and sweet milk, Selecta ice cream, Swift corned beef, and Swift Sweet and Juicy hotdogs.

Late last year, RFM took over the marketing, sales and distribution activities of SFI’s chilled meat and canned meat business to support its working capital requirements, and to allow SFI to focus on strategies needed to reorganize and strengthen its principal business of poultry production in the midst of continuing difficulties in the industry.

SFI is currently transforming its poultry business model to a more targeted market approach and a more cost-efficient operating platform, from the existing set-up of integrated branches that it currently has nationwide.

RFM recently reported a 12-percent sales growth in its branded food business for the first quarter of 2003 compared to the same period last year.