Conglomerate San Miguel Corp. plans to raise another P12 billion to P15 billion from the issuance of fixed-rate bonds to refinance dollar-denominated debts, banking sources said over the weekend.
Sources said San Miguel was looking to immediately issue a second tranche from its P60-billion debt securities program, after it raised P20 billion from its maiden bond offering last month.
Sources said the conglomerate may file with the Securities and Exchange Commission a plan to issue a second tranche of bond sale within the next few days.
San Miguel chief finance officer Ferdinand Constantino earlier said the conglomerate planned to issue “as soon as possible” another set of fixed-rate bonds to pare down its remaining $500-million dollar-denominated debt.
Constantino said San Miguel units Petron Corp. and San Miguel Global Power Holdings Inc. also planned to borrow this year to refinance debt, given concerns over the depreciation of the peso against the US dollar and the increase in interest rates.
“We want to refinance so we can avoid the volatility of the peso versus the dollar,” Constantino said.
Constantino said from as high as $1.5 billion, the conglomerate was able to covert most of its debt to peso borrowings and reduce its dollar-denominated debt to $500 million.
Several companies also plan to tap the bond market over the next two months to secure funds for their programmed capital expenditures.
The SEC approved Megaworld Corp’s P30-billion bond shelf registration and its initial offering of up to P12 billion. STI Education Services Group also obtained SEC’s nod to register P5 billion worth of bonds with an initial tranche of P3 billion.
SM Prime Holdings Inc., the country’s leading integrated property developer, plans to issue up to P20 billion worth of bonds. The planned bond issue represents the second tranche of the P60-billion shelf offering.