Ramon Ang's Privado Holdings buys  3.44 million San Miguel shares

Privado Holdings Corp. bought 3.44 million shares of San Miguel Corp. (SMC) for P298 million, diversified conglomerate SMC noted in a disclosure to the Philippine Stock Exchange released Monday.

 

The company controlled by San Miguel president Ramon S. Ang and board member Thomas A. Tan made the acquisition from the open market from July 18 to July 25 at a price ranging from P82.86 to P88.06 per share.

 

Ang owns 62.5 percent of Privado Holdings and Tan owns 37.5 percent of the company.

 

The share purchase was done at the time when SMC shares were on the plunge on rumors that the company was likely in  financial straits, during which San Miguel shares dropped to a 52-week low of P76.40 apiece on July 17, following speculation that it was the subject of an International Monetary Fund report warning of a possible default by a Philippine conglomerate. 

 

San Miguel earlier reported its consolidated cash and cash equivalent stood at P152.3B in the first quarter of the year while its gearing ratio—at 3.1x net debt to EBITDA—was lower than the 5.5x stipulated in its loan covenants, the company said.

 

At the height of the selling in San Miguel shares, Ang said the company was ready to stage a share buyback program to support share prices and the company denied it was the conglomerate in the IMF report.

 

“We would like to clarify that the conglomerate, which was the subject of the news article that referred to an IMF report dated April as the source, was not SMC. It is unfortunate that certain people have taken advantage of that information to fabricate and spread malicious stories and sow panic in the market to the detriment of our shareholders and the investing public, in general,” Ang said. — VS, GMA News