A LITTLE KNOWN LOCAL HOLDing company, Sonato Inc., has acquired a 99.8-percent stake in publicly listed industrial chemical manufacturer LMG Chemicals Corp. for P353.67 million.

The block was jointly sold by Chemical Industries of the Philippines Inc. (Chemphil) and 3G Holdings Corp. at P1.83 a share. The transaction left only a very little public float not yet owned by Sonato.

Trading on LMG was halted until 10 a.m. Tuesday at the Philippine Stock Exchange to allow the investing public to weigh the impact of the transaction.

This implied the sale of 192 million shares at a slight premium to the P1.80 closing price on March 4, 2004, when LMG shares were last traded.

Sonato?s purchase price was higher than an aborted deal with Sorsogon-based real estate company LKY Development, which earlier was set to buy the same stake at P1.77 a share. LKY, however, defaulted on its commitment to buy the block.

In 2007, LMG underwent a major corporate restructuring after transferring its assets and liabilities to its two wholly owned subsidiaries, Chemphil Manufacturing Corp. and LMG Land Development Corp. It transferred its acid plant and tank farm properties to consolidate the acid plant and tank farm operations into individual holding companies for better management and monitoring.

Chemphil, for its part, plans to use the sales proceeds for debt servicing and working capital requirements. The company had earlier disclosed plans to declare dividends ?at the appropriate time.?

From January to September last year, LMG booked a net loss attributable to majority shareholders of P36.6 million, a reversal of the P311.6 million in net profit in the same period a year ago. With a report from Anna Lam