San Miguel Corp. plans to raise as much as P80 billion through the bond market.
The company told regulators it will soon file for a registration statement for the sale of the bonds, divided into a P60 billion firm offer and another P20 billion to cover the oversubscription option.
The bonds are eyed to be listed in the Philippine Dealing and Exchange Corp., San Miguel said.
In August, San Miguel reported a 33 percent decline in profit for the first half of the year to P19.8 billion from P29.57 billion last year, due to the one-off impact of the Corporate Recovery and Tax Incentives for Enterprise (CREATE) Law.
The food and infrastructure conglomerate said removing the impact of CREATE Law as well as foreign exchange fluctuations on its business, the bottomline result would have been 24 percent higher at P32.5 billion compared to an adjusted P26.1 billion last year.
Despite this, the group described its performance to be “strong” against the backdrop of a 73 percent increase in revenues to P711.4 billion from P410.1 billion last year.
“This, amid the lingering effects of the pandemic, supply chain bottlenecks and inflationary pressures,” it said.
San Miguel said its operating income grew by 41 percent to P85.9 billion, mainly due to the improved performance of its fuel and oil subsidiary Petron Corp. and sustained recoveries of its food, beverage, packaging and infrastructure businesses.
Its earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization reached P91.2 billion, up 13 percent from the first half of 2021.
The food and beverage businesses under San Miguel Food and Beverage Inc. posted a 17 percent increase in profit to P172 billion, driven by volume growth and better selling prices across the beer, spirits and food divisions.
The power generation unit under SMC Global Power Holdings Corp. increased revenues by 70 percent to P102.6 billion on the back of 14,336 gigawatt hours of electricity sold, up 6 percent from last year.
The oil refining business under Petron grew profits by 105.33 percent to P7.7 billion from P3.78 billion last year. Its operations in the country and in Malaysia produced 51.4 million barrels of petroleum products.
The infrastructure businesses posted a 58 percent uptick in revenues to P13.4 billion compared to P8.54 billion last year. Its operating income grew 160 percent to P6 billion amid higher traffic volume.
“Overall, it’s been a very challenging period, with geopolitical conflict resulting in uncertainties and serious supply and costs issues that are affecting industries all over the world,” said Ramon Ang, San Miguel president.
“Despite this, and even with the lingering effects of the pandemic, we’re encouraged by the strong and increasing demand for our products and services, as evidenced by our higher volumes and revenues in the first half. This shows that our country’s economic recovery and growth are gaining pace. We will maximize every opportunity to further strengthen our performance in the second half,” added Ang. –Ruelle Castro
