SEC approves SMFB’s P142B ‘re-IPO’

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) approved on Thursday an equity offering of as much as P141.8 billion planned by consumer powerhouse San Miguel Food and Beverage Inc. (SMFB), potentially the largest equity deal in the history of the local stock market.

SMFB’s re-initial public offering (re-IPO) will bring to public hands as much as 1.02 billion in common shares, allowing the company to widen its public float and comply with the requirement for continuing listing.

Parent conglomerate San Miguel Corp. is selling up to 887 million common shares in SMFB with an option to upsize by 133.05 million common shares at maximum price of P140 per share.

San Miguel has mandated JP Morgan Securities Plc, Morgan Stanley Asia (Singapore) Plc and UBS AG Singapore as its going global coordinators while Deutsche Bank AG Hong Kong and Goldman Sachs (Singapore Plc) are the joint bookrunners.

The lead local underwriters are BDO Capital & Investment Corp. and BPI Capital Corp., while Standard Chartered Bank is the financial advisor.

San Miguel expects to bring in cornerstone investors who will buy a significant piece of the offering.  As this is a secondary share sale, all proceeds will be received by San Miguel for various investments.

SMFB was recently transformed into a new consumer powerhouse with the infusion of P336.35 billion worth of shares in beer and liquor businesses held by its parent conglomerate. This means that in addition to the food businesses under San Miguel PureFoods, SMFB now owns majority of San Miguel Brewery, the country’s leading beer maker, and Ginebra San Miguel, the country’s leading gin maker. /muf