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By Likha C. Cuevas-Miel, Reporter
AMID continued volatility in financial markets
worldwide, the domestic beer unit of Southeast Asia’s largest food
and beverage conglomerate has pushed back its maiden share sale by
two weeks.
The Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE) disclosed
that San Miguel Brewery Inc. (SMBI) will start offering its shares
on April 28 until April 30 instead of the original schedule starting
April 10 to 16 as indicated in the prospectus the company submitted
to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
The firm’s listing at the local bourse was
also pushed back from April 22 to May 12.
In a text message, Eduardo Francisco, BDO
Capital and Investment Corp. president, told The Manila Times that
the issuer is “just waiting for audited financials” to be
finished before the initial public offering (IPO) can proceed.
SMBI has lowered its price range from P9.50 to
P16.30 per share to P8.00 to P15.40 each as it adjusted to the
volatile market. The lower price range will bring down the estimated
primary gross proceeds to a maximum of P2.385 billion from the sale
of 1.549 billion common shares and P21.47 billion from the offering
of 1.394 billion secondary shares, for a total P23.855 billion in
gross proceeds. This is slightly lower than the original target
maximum of P25.246 billion that would be used to help the parent
company’s diversification projects in the power, mining,
infrastructure and utilities industries.
About 70 percent of the shares on offer would be
sold to foreign investors with CitiGroup Global Markets Ltd. and ATR
KimEng Capital Partners Inc. acting as joint coordinators, book
runners and lead managers. The balance would be sold to domestic
buyers in a transaction that would be handled by ATR KimEng and BDO
Capital.
Another firm that announced its plan to conduct
an IPO during the first semester is BayanTrade Inc., which would
sell 29 million common shares equivalent to 36.9 percent of the
company. Estimated proceeds from the share sale is P122 million at a
minimum price of P4.21 each.
A number of companies had pushed back their
plans to undertake an IPO or sell additional shares at the bourse,
citing market volatility.
Financial markets have been unsettled by the
likelihood of a recession in the world’s largest economy, the US.
A US-led slowdown would dent Philippine growth, as it counts the
North American export market as its largest.
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