PHILIPPINES SOCIAL SECURITY TO BUY SAN MIGUEL SHRS
The Philippines' Social Security System
(SSS) is planning to buy eight mln shares in diversified brewer
<San Miguel Corp> (SMC), SMC chief financial officer Ramon del
Rosario said.
    He told reporters the government organisation had expressed
interest in one seat on SMC's 15-man board and was preparing to
invest 800 mln pesos, assuming a purchase price of 100 pesos a
share.
    The shares involved in the proposal were part of the block
of 38 mln shares owned by the United Coconut Planters Bank
(UCPB) and sequestered by the government.
    The block is split between class A and class B stock.
    SMC also proposed to sell a further five mln shares to A.N.
Soriano Corp, the family company of San Miguel president Andres
Soriano, del Rosario said.
    The shares are worth some 500 mln pesos at recent prices.
    Del Rosario said the 14 mln B shares in the block which are
open to foreign ownership would probably be sold to
unidentified foreign purchasers.
    He said SMC and UCPB would meet later this week to try to
resolve disputes over the pricing of the shares.
    President Corazon Aquino earlier this month established an
arbitration panel to settle a row over the disposal of the
shares.
    Their initial sale to Soriano through SMC Hong Kong unit
Neptunia Corp was blocked by the Presidential Commission on
Good Government.
    The commission sequestered the stock on suspicion that the
real owner of the block was Eduardo Cojuanco, the former
chairman of San Miguel and the UCPB and a close associate of
deposed former president Ferdinand Marcos.
 REUTER
