Investing Stocks in Philippines: Standard Chartered

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Friday, December 28, 2012

Stock News 2012: UBS buying shares in Purefoods

Three keys logo by Warja Honegger-Lavater. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

European investment bank UBS AG is buying 2.5 million shares of San Miguel Pure Foods Co. Inc. in exercise of the “overallotment” option provided under the food company’s recent equity offering.

In a disclosure to the Philippine Stock Exchange on Friday, UBS said it had recently exercised the option to take up more shares in Purefoods, which a month ago placed out 25 million secondary common shares erstwhile held by parent company San Miguel Corp. at P240 per share to boost its public ownership.

The P6-billion equity deal widened PureFoods’ public ownership to 15.08 percent from a meager 0.08 percent, meeting the requirement for continuing listing on the local stock exchange. The share sale was arranged by Maybank ATR Kim Eng Financial Corp., Standard Chartered and UBS.

UBS was given the option to take up more shares as the “stabilization agent,” which is mandated to temper price fluctuations. The 2.5 million “overallotment” shares account for about 1.5 percent of the food company’s total oustanding shares.

In line with this, UBS said it had so far purchased 752,780 shares pursuant to price stabilization.

Apart from eliminating the risk of trading suspension and eventual delisting from the PSE for Purefoods, the transaction allowed parent SMC to unlock fresh funds for its expansion.

http://business.inquirer.net/100007/ubs-buying-shares-in-purefoods

Sunday, November 4, 2012

Stock News 2012: SM Purefoods to raise $400M from overseas equity offering

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.

http://www.philstar.com/Article.aspx?articleId=866153&publicationSubCategoryId=66