JSM Financial: San Miguel to offload assets to raise $1 billion for expansion and acquisitions.

March 16, 2010 - PRLog -- The largest publicly listed food, beverage and packaging firm in the Philippines, responsible for generating 3.6% of the nation’s gross domestic product, has announced that it intends raise $1 billion for expansion and acquisitions, JSM Financial was reliably informed.

The firm intends to use the capital to accelerate a $2 billion expansion into infrastructure, energy, telecoms and mining, according to the company’s president, Ramon Ang.
“We are interested in anything that will add value.”JSM Financial believes he was quoted as saying.

In a recent interview at the company’s Manila headquarters, Ang said that the firm which has produced San Miguel Beer for over a century had already received offers for its hot dog maker, packaging unit and gin distillery, adding that the company could spend as much as $2 billion on expansion within a year.

Should the asset sales go through it would increase the total amount that the 56 year old Ang and his chairman Eduardo Cojuangco have raised since 2007 to over $6 billion.

The firm has received offers for a 49% stake in both its canned-meat and hotdog maker, San Miguel Pure Foods Co. and its packaging business, while Ang confirmed that the gin maker Ginbera San Miguel Inc. will be sold to its San Miguel Brewery Inc. unit, but emphasized that the brewery is “not available” for sale after Kirin holdings which JSM Financial understands already owns a 48% stake in San Miguel Brewery recently said that it would be very interested in acquiring a majority if the parent company was willing to sell.

San Miguel opened its brewery in 1890, eight years before the Philippines declared its independence from Spain.

# # #

JSM Financial is an independent broker focused on the realization of superior returns from seed stage and early-stage equity investment and active partnerships with exceptional entrepreneurs building market-leading technology companies.