Diversified conglomerate San Miguel Corp. said it will defer its planned issuance and listing of P60 billion worth of commercial paper due to the outbreak of coronavirus (COVID-19).
San Miguel chief finance officer and treasurer Ferdinand Constantino said in a disclosure to the stock exchange the company had informed the Securities and Exchange Commission of the planned deferment.
“The company will defer the processing of the registration statement and the issuance and listing of the P60 billion commercial papers until such time that conditions stabilize, taking into consideration the COVID- 19 outbreak and following the adoption by the Philippine government of enhanced community quarantine and stringent distancing measures over the entire island of Luzon effective 17 March 2020 until 12 April 2020,” the conglomerate said.
“In view of the foregoing, we hereby waive the 45-day review period under Section 12.6 of the Securities and Regulation Code (Republic Act No. 8799). We shall advise the SEC once the company decides to continue with the registration of the commercial papers program,” it added.
The SEC in February approved San Miguel’s planned P60-billion commercial paper program.
San Miguel plans to offer P15 billion in the initial tranche, with an oversubscription option of up to P5 billion.
The company tapped BDO Capital & Investments Corp., BPI Capital Corp., China Bank Capital Corp. and SB Capital Investments Corp as joint arrangers and joint lead underwriters of the offering. Philippine Commercial Capital Inc. is the sole issue manager.
The commercial paper will have a term of 363 days and will be issued in scripless form in minimum denominations of P50,000 each and multiples of P10,000 thereafter.
San Miguel will use net proceeds from the offering to partially fund the redemption of Series 1 preferred shares of the company at P75 per share.
The offering period was supposed to start March 23 until March 27, while issue and listing date was originally scheduled on April 3, 2020.