SMC head to consult Campos on Dole stake

MANILA, Philippines - The president of San Miguel Corp. (SMC) said yesterday he will have to consult with his close friend, businessman Jose “Butch” Campos Jr. who controls the company that is the majority owner of Del Monte Pacific, before pursuing an offer to acquire a stake in Dole Philippines.

In an interview, SMC president Ramon S. Ang said that they were asked by Morgan Stanley if they would be interested in acquiring a stake in Dole Philippines and SMC said yes.

“But Butch (Campos) is a brother and we will always cooperate,” Ang told The STAR.

Dole’s rival, Del Monte Pacific is 78.5 percent-owned by Nutriasia Pacific Ltd. which in turn is majority-owned by the Campos family. SMC used to own a minority stake in Nutriasia but it sold out to its joint venture partner, the Campos group.

SMC earlier expressed interest in taking over the operations of Dole Food Co., in the Philippines and in other Asian countries as part of its core business expansion. Ang has said that SMC is interested in Dole Philippines, but it is willing to consider Dole’s other units within the Asia-Pacific region.

Dole Philippines operates agricultural and industrial facilities in Mindanao. It has a 24,000-acre base plantation, two cannery complexes with a can plant, a packaging plant and fresh fruit packaging plant. It has a shipping and wharf operation with a box and labels plant. It also has 18,000 acres of grower farms in South Cotabato and Sarangani.

Employing almost 6,000 regular employees, its product lines include canned pineapple solids, canned mixed fruits, canned beverages, packaged fruit snacks and tomato sauce.

It also has a division that produces and exports cavendish bananas to Japan, Korea, China, Hong Kong, New Zealand and the Middle East. It controls about a third of the country’s banana industry in terms of plantation size and volume of shipment throughout Asia-Pacific.

The Dole Asia operations, meanwhile, includes packaged and fresh market and distribution centers in Korea, Hong Kong, and China, pineapple sourcing and canning as well as packaged and fresh market in Thailand, fruit and vegetable packing plants and packaged and fresh market in Japan, and packaged and fresh market in Singapore and the Middle East, and banana and fresh pineapple market as well as kiwi sourcing in New Zealand.

Dole announced earlier this year that it would undertake a worldwide asset sale and debt reduction program.

Dole chalked up global net revenue of $7.6 billion in 2008. In the Philippines, Dole ranked 52nd among the top corporations based on a 2004 report by the Securities and Exchange Commission, with gross revenue of about P12.9 billion and a net income of P98 million.

Jose Mari Lacson of Campos Lanuza & Co., said the proposed acquisition of some of Dole’s operations was in line with San Miguel’s food businesses. He said this could serve as the conglomerate’s platform for agricultural production, complementing a previously announced $1-billion joint venture with Malaysia’s Kuok group to develop a million hectares of farmland in the Philippines and use the produce to support their food businesses.