SMC grants P1.5-B cash dividend to preferred stockholders

MANILA, Philippines - Diversified conglomerate San Miguel Corp. (SMC) has declared a P1.5-billion cash dividend for holders of its preferred shares.

“At the regular meeting of the board of directors of SMC, the board approved to declare dividends on the Series 2 preferred shares,” the company said.

Specifically, P1.40625 per share will be given to holders of the 721 million preferred 2-A shares, P1.4296875 for 90.42 million preferred 2-B shares and P1.10  for 225.55 million preferred 2-C shares.

Under the cash dividend declaration, SMC will spend P1.013 billion, P129.28 million and P383.33 million to pay the owners of preferred 2-A, 2-B and 2-C shares, respectively.

The dividends are payable on April 4, 2013 to stockholders  of record as of March 20, 2013, SMC said.

In September, SMC redeemed P72.8 billion Series 1 preferred shares. These shares were issued in 2009 to stockholders who agreed to convert their common shares to preferred shares.

SMC redeemed the shares after raising P80.025 billion from the sale of the preferred Series 2 shares.

Meanwhile, the conglomerate’s board allowed a plan to refinance debts.

“The board of directors of the corporation also approved to authorize the management to refinance its existing financial obligations under such terms and conditions which are favorable and advantageous to the company,” SMC said.

As of end-September last year, the conglomerate had P237.874 million in current liabilities  due in the next 12 months and P400.907 billion in long-term liabilities. Of these, P112 billion and P201.24 billion are short and long-term debts, respectively.

In the nine-month period, SMC’s net earnings surged 61 percent to P19.2 billion, mainly due to foreign exchange gains and increased contributions from its power generation unit.

Consolidated sales revenues jumped 29 percent to P509.2 billion on higher sales of SMC Global Power Corp. as well as favorable selling prices for its branded products.

SMC is into power (SMC Global), beer (San Miguel Brewery Inc.), packaging (San Miguel Yamamura Packaging Corp.), liquor (Ginebra San Miguel Inc.), petroleum (Petron Corp.), food and beverage (San Miguel Pure Foods Co. Inc.), airline (Philippine Airlines), and infrastructure projects.