Food and beverage giant San Miguel Food and Beverages Inc. said it plans to offer more shares to the public in a bid to widen its public float to 30 percent.
SMFB president Ramon Ang said in an interview at the sidelines of the ceremonial bell ringing for the company’s P34-billion secondary offering it was open to selling more shares when market conditions improved.
“Yes, when the market improves later on, in the next few years, I think. We intend to offer more shares to the public. Maybe eventually up to 30 percent of the public float,” Ang said.
SMFB’s public float is currently at 10 percent after successfully raising P34 billion from the sale of 400.9 million shares at an offering price of P85 apiece.
The company initially planned to sell as much as 1.02 billion in common shares to the public for up to P140 per share.
It later reduced the size of the offering because of weak market conditions.
Ang, meanwhile, said the outlook for the newly-consolidated food and beer business remained positive despite the rising inflation rate.
He said demand for the company’s products continued to be strong as beer and food businesses were poised to register double-digit growth in volume and profits for this year.
“If you notice, the business of food and beverage, beer, food, and hard liquor is performing very very well. The volume growth is so so big that a lot of people are surprised. And the profitability of the business is very stable,” Ang said.
Ang said the company was currently building 10 breweries in the country that would boost the total production capacity to 42 million hectoliters a year to sustain growth.
The planned breweries, located in the Ilocos region, Pangasinan, Cagayan de Oro, Bacolod, and Cebu, will be operational in the next three years.
SMFB also plans to build two brewery plans overseas, one in California and another in Vietnam. Each plant has a capacity of 2 million hectoliters.