Metro Pacific unloads Victorias Milling stake

MANILA, Philippines - Metro Pacific Holdings Inc. (MPHI), a company led by business titan Manuel V. Pangilinan, has unloaded its entire stake in the country’s largest sugar milling firm.

MPHI sold its 7.67-percent interest in Victorias Milling Co. Inc. (VMC) to First Agri Holdings Corp. for about P900 million, a report filed at the Philippine Stock Exchange showed.

The Pangilinan-led firm said it sold a total of 196.66 million common shares at P4.55 apiece on Dec. 23 last year.

“On account of the aforesaid sale of shares, MPHI is filing this to report a decrease in its interest in VMC from 7.67 percent to zero percent,” the company said.

VMC, as the country’s biggest sugar miller, is engaged in integrated raw and refined sugar manufacturing with plant facilities in Victorias City, Negros Occidental.

It has subsidiaries engaged in fish canning, real estate, sugar sacks manufacturing and packaging, and golf course and restaurant operations which include Victorias Foods Corp., Victorias Agricultural Land Corp., Canetown Development Corp., Victorias Golf and Country Club Inc., Victorias Quality Packaging Co. Inc., and Victorias Industrial Gases Corp.

Pangilinan has earlier aired plans for the Metro Pacific Group to potentially hike its interest in VMC but instead decided to dissolve the group’s shareholdings in the sugar miller.

First Agri Holdings, the buyer of MPHI’s shares, is an investment holding firm inclined in investing in food and agribusiness in the Asia Pacific region.

VMC posted a net income of P926 million in its fiscal year 2014 ending August, while revenues stood at P5 billion.