Food and beverage conglomerate San Miguel Corp. (SMC) is interested to further expand its exposure in the energy sector, this time in the upstream oil industry development.
SMC president and CEO Ramon Ang told reporters at the sidelines of the Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) stockholders’ meeting yesterday that they are on the lookout for other potential business ventures in the energy industry.
The SMC group was reportedly interested in joining the bidding for the National Government’s share in PNOC-Exploration Corp., the oil and gas exploration arm of state-run Philippine National Oil Co. (PNOC).
SMC acquired recently a majority stake in Petron Corp., the county’s largest oil refiner. This puts the company in a strategic position to go for business opportunities in the downstream oil industry.
The largest food conglomerate in Southeast Asia also bought a 43-percent stake in Meralco, the biggest power utility company in the Philippines.
“We will join and evaluate any opportunity available,” he said when asked if they are still interested to join the PNOC-EC bidding.
Ang said SMC’s thrust is to continuously explore business opportunities.
“We will always be interested in any investment as long as we think that it is a viable one and we have funds to support it,” he said.
Publicly-listed PNOC-EC is seen to be a good investment since it owns 10 percent of the $4.5-billion Malampaya deep water gas to power project in Northwest Palawan. The project supplies 2,700 MW worth of power to three natural gas-fired power plants.
Finance Secretary Margarito Teves said the government plans to sell PNOC-EC by September this year.
Teves said three financial advisors were hired to handle the privatization of PNOC-EC. These are Development Bank of the Philippines, Citibank Group, and ATR KimEng Securities Corp.
DBP president Reynaldo David, in a chance interview during the same event, said they have yet to receive official documents from the DOF.
“We have not been officially appointed yet. We will let you know,” David said, when asked if they have already decided what to do with the PNOC-EC sale.
Teves earlier said the financial advisors have recommended a phased sale which will allow the government to sell the 40- percent stake in tranches or stages.
”They want to stage it initially at 40 percent and this is also the advice of our financial advisors,” the finance chief said.
The government hopes to generate P11 billion from the sale of the PNOC-EC shares.
So far, there are a lot of interested parties that have signified their intentions to participate in the bidding.
At present, PNOC-EC is finalizing the terms of reference (TOR) for the sale.
Aside from PNOC-EC, SMC is also eyeing investments in the power sector by bidding for generation assets of the National Power Corp. (Napocor).