Meat vendor revives IPO plans; strategic investor goes for small cut

Anthony Mark Ng

GUIGUINTO, BULACAN—Businessman Anthony Mark Ng has his plate full until next year with the potential relaunch of North Star Meat Merchants Inc.’s initial public offering (IPO) and a serious offer from a strategic investor seeking a minority stake.

Ng, chair and CEO of North Star, told reporters on Wednesday they were hoping to revive the deferred IPO in 2023 but that the final timetable would depend on market conditions.

“An IPO is once in a lifetime … we don’t want to screw that up,” said Ng, who founded North Star more than two decades ago as a business school thesis project.

The timing was also critical as he worried about the negative perception an IPO flop could create.

“I spent 23 years building this and during one of the biggest events of my career, we [disappoint investors] just to get money? That’s not how we do business,” he said.

SM Group

North Star might be unfamiliar to most customers but its fresh meat products can be found on the shelves of the Sy family’s supermarkets under the SM Group. It is also the supplier of SM Bonus meats for more than 15 years now.

Ng said the IPO would return to the market with a much larger size given their growth prospects, as demand for meat remained resilient despite the recent surge in consumer prices. Jed Tan, chief financial officer at North Star, also explained the larger size would allow them to lure international investors who might find the current IPO too small.

“We are continually in talks with fund managers and investment bankers for us to understand the requirements of the market. But we are targeting the foreign investors,” he said on Wednesday.

Meanwhile, Ng revealed North Star had received a number of offers from investors such as local groups and foreign private equity firms, with some offering to buy a controlling stake in the company.

“There has been a lot of positive interest. It’s overwhelming,” he said.

While full buyout offers were refused outright, North Star was open to entertaining a strategic partner looking to buy a minority position in the company. Mystery investor

Ng said they have narrowed the list down to one unnamed strategic investor, which had courted the firm from before the IPO.

For now, Tan said they would tap bank lines to support expansion since the IPO was delayed.

North Star operates three cold chain facilities, two in Bulacan and one in Cebu, with a combined capacity of about 8.1 million kilograms for 360 meat concessions and over 1,250 stores and outlets nationwide.

Its mobile refrigerators, or reefer vans, can deliver up to 120,000 kg of meat daily. Operations are also supported by over 2,200 butchers.