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| B-Meg Llamados (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
Local food giant San Miguel Pure Foods Co. Inc. (SMPF) is hoping to raise as much as $400 million from an overseas equity offering to widen its public float.
Sources said SMPF, which is hard pressed to meet a stock exchange ruling that requires listed firms to have a minimum public ownership of 10 percent, intends to start accepting orders from institutional and retail investors beginning Nov. 12. Its public float currently stands at 0.08 percent.
The company has reportedly tapped UBS AG, Standard Chartered and Malayan Banking Bhd., as financial advisors.
SMPF is one of three units of diversifying conglomerate San Miguel Corp. with public ownership of less than 10 percent. The two others include San Miguel Brewery Inc. and San Miguel Properties with a public float of 0.61 percent and 0.06 percent, respectively.
The stock was last traded on Sept.4, at P900 each share.
Listed companies that fail to meet the mandated 10-percent public float by the end of December face trading suspension for up to six months, by the first trading day of 2013. Aside from this, errant companies must still pay listing fees while they are suspended.
After the lapse of the suspension period, they will automatically be delisted from the local bourse unless they have by then complied with the requirement.
During the trading suspension, sale of shares may be effected only outside the trading system of the PSE and the transactions will be subject to a capital gains tax of between five and 10 percent.
With the deadline for listed firms’ compliance with the minimum public float requirement nearing, Purefoods has reportedly embarked on a road show to drum up support for its planned share sale. The company is looking to boost its public float to as much as 25 percent.
The share sale comes at a good time time when investor confidence in the country’s economy continues to soar amid steady remittances from Filipinos working overseas, record low interest rates, strong domestic consumption, a manageable inflation and recovery of electronics exports.
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