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By Likha C. Cuevas-Miel, Reporter
San Miguel Brewery Inc. has further tightened
the price range of its initial public offering and canceled the sale
to US investors in the face of market volatility, the company
announced Friday on the sidelines of its investors briefing.
The company said further it has lowered the
maximum price of the range to P11 per share from P15 per share with
the minimum price retained at P8 each. In the preliminary documents
submitted to regulators, SMB originally set the price range at P9.50
to P16.30 per share.
Eduardo Francisco, BDO Capital and Investment
Corp. president, said the tightening of price range is a way to make
the shares more attractive to investors in an environment that has
proven to be hostile to capital-raising activities, especially
initial public offerings. Several companies that have expressed
interest in selling to the public through maiden share offerings
have backed out due to volatility in the markets caused by the US
slowdown.
The price for SMB’s shares on offer will be
set on April 24 after its international road show. A maximum of 1.55
billion shares will be available to investors to raise about P17
billion in gross proceeds for the issuers. Of the total, 1.394
billion secondary shares will be sold by the parent San Miguel Corp.
to generate funds to pay down its existing debts.
The beer company has also canceled the offering
to US investors due to uncertainties in that market amid the specter
of a recession. Instead, the issuers would focus on Asian and
European markets where it can sell about 70 percent of the total
shares on offer. CitiGroup Global Markets Ltd. and ATR KimEng
Capital Partners Inc. were tapped as joint coordinators, bookrunners
and lead managers for the capital-raising exercise while ATR KimEng
and BDO Capital and Investment Corp would handle the domestic side
of the offering.
Price will be set on April 24 after the last leg
of the international road show and the shares will be listed in the
Philippine Stock Exchange on May 12.
SMB also announced that its profits during the
first quarter grew by 37 percent to P2.5 billion as net sales grew
13 percent to P12.3 billion year on year. The improvement was due to
an 18-percent increase in sales volume at 47 million cases and cost
management.
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