Metro Pacific sells Steniel for P425.5 M

Metro Pacific Corp., the local unit of Hong Kong’s First Pacific Co. Ltd., has sold its publicly-listed packaging subsidiary Steniel Manufacturing Corp. to regional investment firm CVC Asia Pacific Ltd. for P425.5 million.

"The sale of Steniel is a further step towards MPC achieving its objective of becoming a premier property and real estate development company," MPC president and CEO Ricardo Pascua said.

He said Steniel was sold to CVC given its considerable experience in the paper packaging business in Europe. CVC Asia is an advisor to its parent company Citigroup on its investments in the Asia Pacific region. It also acts as an advisor to CVC Capital Partners Asia Pacific Ltd. which manages over $750-million investment portfolio in Asia.

"Such management expertise will maximize the potential of Steniel. For Metro Pacific, this is also a significant step in that with the disposal of Steniel, the property assets of Metro Pacific now account for 93 percent of our total resources," Pascua said.

The purchase of MPC’s a 72.6- percent interest in Steniel will be consummated through Silverneedle Investments B.V., a special purpose vehicle established by CVC Asia, before the year ends.

Pascua said the proceeds of the sale will be used partly to support the various on-going projects of MPC, frontlined by the development, of the Bonifacio Global City, as well as to partly retire debt.

Steniel was the latest in the growing list of MPC units that had been disposed in the past two years. Since last year, its asset disposal list includes its entire interest in Metro Bottled Water Corp., (P933 million) to La Tondeña; Metrolab Industries Inc. (P681 million) to Sara Lee; Smart Communications Inc. (P2.71 billion) to Japan’s Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Co.; and Metrovet Inc. (P100 million) to Agribrands Animal Health of the US. – Conrado Diaz. Jr.