San Miguel completes $970m bond, share sale
Diversified Philippine industrial conglomerate San Miguel Corp. has completed its record-setting shares and bond global sale deal worth $970 million with the resumption of trading on the company's stock on the Philippine Stock Exchange.
Although the stock's price suffered a decline due to poor investor appetite, the shares portion of San Miguel"s offering has made it to the record books as the largest-ever equity transaction in the Philippine market and the biggest in Southeast Asia in over a decade, brokers said.
Shares of San Miguel worth an estimated $370 million held by Top Frontier Investment Holdings Inc. were crossed on Thursday, sending the day's aggregate market turnover to nearly 26.87 billion pesos (US$624 million).
The cross sale and regular trades on the exchange floor on San Miguel accounted for 24.25 billion pesos, or close to 90.3 percent, of that overall total for the day.
However, the stock's price closed the session at 109.50, down by 28.4 percent from its last trade price of 153.00 pesos on April 12 when it announced a suspension of trading in deference to the bond and share offering.
Compared to the offer price of 110 pesos, the Thursday close was down by nearly half a percent.
On Friday the San Miguel stock was also slightly weak at mid-session in tandem with overall bearish market sentiments, according to data from the exchange.
Company officials attributed the stock's disappointing performance to prevailing jitters in the global investment community caused ostensibly by concerns over inflation and interest rate trends in emerging markets like the Philippines.
The stock market as a whole was down 1.15 percent Thursday on the key PSEi index, with decliners outnumbering advancers, 94 to 36, according to bourse official reports.
San Miguel president Ramon Ang told reporters that investors should "hold on to their shares because they are very valuable." The stock, he added, "is going to fly" in a few months.
Mr Ang had previous announced that the bond and shares global offer was intended to raise funds for San Miguel's future expansion into infrastructure and mining ventures. The company is now widely known as a food and beverage-based group.
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