By James A. Loyola

Diversified conglomerate San Miguel Corporation is still aiming to sell more share of subsidiary San Miguel Food and Beverage Inc. to the public after its first follow-on offering size had to be reduced due to bearish market conditions.

In an interview after the listing of the new SMFB shares, SMC President Ramon S. Ang said that, “when market improves later on in the next few years… We intend to offer more shares to the public, maybe eventually up to 30 percent public float.”

He said this means they can still sell shares equivalent to 18 percent of the outstanding capital stock of SMFB since its public float now stands at 12 percent of the unit’s expanded capital after the consolidating and FOO.

SMC had reduced the size of its offering of SMFB shares to P39.19 billion after setting the final offer price at P85.00 per share.

The firm sold a total of 461.08 million secondary SMFB shares, consisting of 400.94 million principal shares with an over allotment option of up to 60.14 million shares.

The stake sale represents about 6.8 percent of the unit’s shares.

The offer price of P85 per share is also at the lower end of its price range of P85 to P95 per share after it initially set the maximum offer price at P140 per share and an offer size of 1.02 billion shares.

JPMorgan, Morgan Stanley and UBS are joint global co-ordinators for the sale, while Deutsche Bank and Goldman Sachs are joint bookrunners. BDO Capital and Investment and BPI Capital are the local lead underwriters.

“Appetite for the Philippine market in general has not been strong, San Miguel Food and Beverage included,” said Regina Capital Development Corporation Managing Director Luis Limlingan.

SMC completed the consolidation of its food and beverage businesses last June 29, 2018, thus, the performance numbers reflect the consolidated financials on a comparative basis with last year.