By ALBERT CASTRO

Mall tycoon Henry Sy reportedly bought P560 million swig of San Miguel Beer initial public offering yesterday.

Brokers yesterday disclosed that Henry Sy who was reported to have sold P29 billion worth of San Miguel shares last year, bought neartly six percent of San Miguel Brewery, Inc.’s initial public offering (IPO) of 886.10 million shares.

Brokers said that Sy was the biggest local individual investor and that "Tatang" as he is called, bought the shares as "personal investment".

Local offering underwriter BDO Capital and Investment, Inc. (BDO Capital), part of the Sy conglomerate said that. Sy’s "personal investment" was "a few hundred million pesos".

Earlier reports showed that the offering was oversubscribed both in foreign and local offerings respectively by 1.5 times and 0.5 times respectively.

The IPO was priced at P8 per share and closed at P8.50 per share in its initial day of trade.

BDO Capital president Eduardo V. Francisco then said that the local response for the IPO was already acceptable despite brokers buying only half of their allocation.

The offering’s saving grace came from small investors who swamped the offer, mostly coming from company employees and local distributors of San Miguel products.

The foreign offering on the other hand attracted about 20 institutional investors from Singapore, Hong Kong, and London according to ATR KimEng Capital Partners, Inc. managing director Roberto Bernales.

San Miguel Brewery president Ramon Ang said the offering was packaged particularly for local small investors, even leaving mother company partner Kirin Brewery Co. and Kirin Holdings, Co. Ltd., out of the IPO. Ang said that the company’s offer price gave investors the upside for their investments going forward.

"The IPO today is mostly for Filipino investors. We have no intention to invite big foreign investors; our intention is to share this with Filipino investors... We did not invite them (Kirin group) for this purpose," said Ang.

Ang said that at P8 initial offer it was already at a premium of 14 times the price to earnings ratio P/E of the company compared to the Philippine Stock Exchange’s average P/E ratio of about 10 times. " Kaya nabibili pa at 14 times PSE is because we believe we chose to go at the lower end so we can leave something at the table so that the investing public will have the chance to earn. Investors are assured of 7 percent cash dividend... better than putting money in the bank. We are confident based on the very strong company’s name and strong cash dividend and the investors’ upside is there," said Ang.

Sy’s investment, Ang said his investment speaks of "a very strong confidence" in the brewery business.

"Henry Sy has a very strong confidence in our business... He has signified interest that if there are many more opportunities to invest in the beer business, he will buy more shares," said Ang.

"I think he bought more shares in this IPO. A few hundred million pesos or something," said Ang.

Considered the crown jewel of food conglomerate San Miguel Corp., San Miguel Brewery’s offering band was twice adjusted and eventually pegged at the lower end of its offering band.

It earned P6.16 billion, with the green shoe option to be exercised within the next 30 days, according to ATR Kim Eng.

It opened at P8.30, 3.75 percent up from its IPO price, before hitting a low of P7.90.

It closed at P8.50, an upside of 6.25 percent.

For the first quarter of the year, San Miguel Brewery net sales rose P12.3 billion, 13 percent from P10.8 billion last year, said San Miguel Corp. chairman Eduardo Cojuangco.

"Our sales volume grew 18 percent, reaching 47 million cases in only three months," he added.