SMC to raise fresh capital for its infra business

Diversified conglomerate San Miguel Corp. intends to raise fresh capital to fund its foray into the infrastructure business, among others, by selling common shares and issuing dollar-denominated convertible bonds. San Miguel in a disclosure to the Philippine Stock Exchange on Monday said the offering, part of which would come from shareholder Top Frontier Investment Holdings Inc., may amount to about $850 million. The dollar-denominated exchangeable bonds may be exchanged for common shares from treasury stock of the company. "Proceeds from the Offer and the Exchangeable Bond Offer will be used by SMC for its infrastructure business, working capital and other general corporate purposes, and the Selling shareholder to repay advances from shareholders," the company said. The shares will be sold in the local market while the bonds will be offered abroad outside of the US. For the share offer, San Miguel has appointed Credit Suisse (Singapore) and Standard Chartered Securities (Singapore) as joint global coordinators and international joint bookrunners. International co-bookrunners include Goldman Sachs (Singapore) and UBS AG. ATR Kim Eng Capital Partners, BDO Capital & Investment Corp and SB Capital Investment Corp. are the domestic joint bookrunners. San Miguel has earlier announced that it is buying 51 percent of the Universal LRT Corp., which was commissioned to build the Metro Rail Transit Line 7 that will run from Quezon City to Bulacan. The conglomerate is also eyeing other investments in other light rail transit projects in Cebu, Cagayan de Oro, Davao, Iloilo and a bullet train railway to run from Laoag to Bicol. -- CMA/OMG, GMA News