SMC completes tender offer for Petron shares

MANILA, Philippines - Southeast Asia’s largest food, drinks and packaging firm San Miguel Corp. announced yesterday it has completed a tender offer for shares in oil retailing giant Petron Corp. through a series of special block sales coursed through the stock exchange.

San Miguel, which is moving into higher-growth sectors, acquired from minority shareholders a total of 184.7 million shares, accounting for a 1.97 percent interest in the oil refiner. The shares were bought at P6.85 each.

 The 120-year old firm exercised its option to acquire 40 percent of SEA Refinery Corp, which owns about 50.1 percent of Petron, triggering a tender offer for the remaining 49.9 percent stake.

It paid $10 million early last year to acquire an exclusive option to buy into SEA Refinery, a unit of British investment firm Ashmore Group.

The Ashmore Group, which holds a 40.5 percent stake in Petron through its wholly-owned unit SEA BV, has agreed not to participate in the tender offer.

With the completion of the tender offer, Petron’s tender float has been reduced to just 7.43 percent from 9.4 percent.

San Miguel has been moving away from its traditional food and drinks businesses and into power, mining, telecommunications, oil refining and infrastructure to fuel faster profit growth.

San Miguel currently owns 27 percent of Manila Electric Co. (Meralco), the country’s biggest power distributor, and has also secured state contracts to operate and manage the output of four power plants on the main island of Luzon with a combined capacity of more than 3,000 megawatts.