SMB mulls options on public float

MANILA, Philippines - San Miguel Brewery Inc. (SMB), the flagship unit of diversifying conglomerate San Miguel Corp., said may issue preferred shares to comply with the exchange’s minimum public ownership rule or apply for voluntary delisting should it fail to convince its Japanese partner to dilute its shareholdings.

In a briefing with reporters yesterday, San Miguel Corp. president Ramon Ang said they are meeting with Japan’s largest beer company, Kirin Brewery Co., which owns 48 percent of SMB, to discuss ways on how to meet the minimum public float of 10 percent for listed companies.

“We’ll meet in June, hopefully we can sell together because we don’t want to get diluted,” Ang said.

Should everything else fail, SMB may opt to voluntarily delist its shares from the stock exchange.

SMB, the country’s most valuable listed firm, has a free float of 0.6 percent, according to stock exchange data.

Ang pointed out that SMB has a strong cashflow and does not need to go to the equity market to support its expansion.

As for its food manufacturing arm, Ang said Purefoods is considering selling 10 or 15 percent of the company through a secondary offering or issuance of new shares to increase its public float to at least 10 percent.

Over the years, Purefoods has been able to maintain strong market leadership in many of the sectors in which it competes.  These include non-refrigerated and refrigerated margarine (96 percent and 89 percent, respectively), hotdogs (49 percent), fresh meats (42 percent), poultry (41 percent), butter (44 percent) and feeds (41 percent).