A done deal. A high ranking source yesterday said that San Miguel Corp., has signed up to take control of Petron Corp., from Ashmore Group for a yet undisclosed amount.

Last Monday San Miguel, Asia’s largest food and beverage conglomerate, announced that it bought the Government Service Insurance System’s 27 percent stake in Manila Electric Co., for P30 billion including interest of P3 billion.

San Miguel bought the Meralco share at P90 per share, double Monday’s closing price of P44.50 or P27 billion.

San Miguel will pay the GSIS in three years. The company also announced that it is buying into an Indonesian company operating the largest coal reserves in the world.

Ashmore bought its current 51 percent stake in Petron for roughly P33.5 billion.

The government share is worth another P25 billion.

For San Miguel to get all 91 percent of Petron, it will have to shell out more than P58.5 billion.

Based on San Miguel’s generosity in paying for key companies, a P100 billion purchase will not be far-off.

However, analysts claim that San Miguel has a war chest of P105 billion that will still have to be budgetted for the purchase of a stake in an Indonesian mining company.

San Miguel has previously announced it will diversify into high-growth industries like mining, power, infrastructure, water, other utilities and property.

A Petron insider said that the board including its chairman, Nick Alcantara, have been asked to execute individual letters of resignation effective January 1, 2009.

Ashmore currently owns 51 percent of Petron after buying Saudi Aramco’s 40 percent stake for $550 million dollars (P27 billion at P 49 to the dollar) and additional 11 percent stake for P6.5 billion from a tender offer to public stockholders last June.

Ashmore has the right of first refusal for the 40 percent stake the government plans to sell this year.

Finance secretary Margarito Teves said that the Asset Privatization Council decided to sell PNOC’s remaining 40 percent stake in Petron Corp for at least P25 billion. Teves hopes to book the sale by December.

The government needs the money to plug a budget deficit seen to balloon to P100 billion this year as a result of current world financial crisis.

Petron has total assets of P104.5 billion. Its supplies 40 percent of country’s refined product requirement , with rated capacity of 180,000 barrel per day . It also exports petroleum products to Cambodia, South Korea , China and Australia .