San Miguel Corporation is the largest publicly listed food, beverage and packaging company in the
PhilippinesThe Philippines officially known as the Republic of the Philippines, is a country in Southeast Asia with Manila as its capital city. It comprises 7,107 islands in the western Pacific Ocean....
. As of 2001, its business generated 3.6 percent of the Philippines'
gross domestic productThe gross domestic product or gross domestic income is a basic measure of a country's economic performance and is the market value of all final goods and services made within the borders of a country in a year...
and 4.5 percent of the government's
taxTo tax is to impose a financial charge or other levy upon a taxpayer by a state or the functional equivalent of a state such that failure to pay is punishable by law.Taxes are also imposed by many subnational entities...
revenue. San Miguel is also one of Southeast Asia's leading food, beverage, and packaging companies, and "the dominant player on the domestic market." It has pursued overseas marketsfor exapnsion and to "reignite growth" within the group. The company had over 100 major manufacturing facilities in the Philippines, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Vietnam, and Australia and exported its products to more than 40 countries outside the Philippines, the "San Miguel name is rarely attributed to anything other than its global brand, San Miguel Beer."
Founded in 1890 as a brewery, San Miguel now makes nine out of every 10 bottles of beer, 87 percent of the soft drinks, 60 percent of the processed meat and 40 percent of the poultry sold in the Philippines. The trade-name San Miguel originates from St. Michael the
archangelArchangel is a term meaning an angel of high rank. Archangels are found in a number of religious traditions, including Christianity, Islam, Judaism, and Zoroastrianism. Michael is the only archangel named in the Bible as recognized by both Jews and Christians...
.
The company has over 100 facilities in the Philippines,
Southeast AsiaManila
Bangkok
Ho Chi Minh City
Kuala Lumpur
Singapore
Yangon
Bandung
Hanoi
Surabaya
Taichung
Kaohsiung
Medan|-|}...
,
ChinaChina is a cultural region, an ancient civilization, and, depending on perspective, a national or multinational entity extending over a large area in East Asia....
, and
AustraliaAustralia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the continental mainland , the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans...
. Its major operating facilities include five
breweriesA brewery is a dedicated building for the making of beer, though beer can be made in the home, and has been for much of beer's history. A company which makes beer is called either a brewery or a brewing company....
, four glass plants, two metal closure and
lithographyLithography is a method for printing using a stone or a metal plate with a completely smooth surface...
plants, two plastic case plants, and a coconut oil mill. San Miguel is one of the Philippines' biggest private employers, with over 25,900 employees.
The company reported a net income of $171 million in 2005. As of the first half of 2006, the company's net income had grown 15 percent from a year earlier to P4.36 billion ($83.4 million) following the consolidation of its Australian subsidiary, National Foods Ltd.
Early years
Under a royal grant from
SpainSpain , officially the Kingdom of Spain , is a country located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula.
[The Spanish constitution does not establish any official denomination of the country, even though España , Estado español and Nación española are used interchangeably...]
, Enrique Barretto y de Ycaza opened
La Fábrica de Cerveza de San Miguel, Southeast Asia's first
breweryA brewery is a dedicated building for the making of beer, though beer can be made in the home, and has been for much of beer's history. A company which makes beer is called either a brewery or a brewing company....
, on September 29, 1890 at 6 Calzada de Malacañang in
ManilaThe City of Manila , or simply Manila or Maynila, is the capital of the Philippines and one of the 17 cities and municipalities that make up Metro Manila. It is located on the eastern shores of Manila Bay, on the western portion of the National Capital Region, in the western side of Luzon...
, near the Palace of the Governor-General of the Philippines. The trade-name San Miguel, originates from the local brewery of San Miguel, Barcelona, Spain. He named the company after the section of Manila in which he lived and worked.
Barretto was soon joined by Pedro Pablo Roxas, who brought with him a German brewmaster, Ludwig Kiene, as technical director. San Miguel's brew won its first major award at 1895's Philippines Regional Exposition. After six years of operation, the fledgling brewery was outselling imported brands five to one. At the outbreak of
World War IWorld War I , also known as the First World War, the Great War, and the War to End All Wars, was a global military conflict which involved most of the world's great powers, assembled in two opposing alliances: the Triple Entente and the Triple Alliance...
, San Miguel was exporting its beer to
Hong KongHong Kong , officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, is a highly autonomous territory of the People's Republic of China, facing Guangdong to the north and the South China Sea to the east, west and south...
,
ShanghaiShanghai is the largest city in China, and one of the largest metropolitan areas in the world, with over 20 million people. Located on China's central eastern coast at the mouth of the Yangtze River, the city is administered as a municipality of the People's Republic of China with province-level...
, and
GuamGuam is an island in the western Pacific Ocean and is an organized, unincorporated territory of the United States. It is one of five U.S. territories with an established civilian government. The island's capital is Hagåtña...
.
The company was incorporated in 1913 following the death of Roxas.
Reign of the Sorianos: 1918 to 1963
In 1918, Andres Soriano y Roxas joined San Miguel as a clerk in the accounting department, beginning a multigeneration (albeit interrupted) reign of the Sorianos.
Soriano with the help of a wealthy and influential advertiser, Jose Carcereny initiated the company's diversification, which proceeded rather logically via vertical integration. The experience cultivating barley, for instance, naturally evolved into other agricultural businesses. The brewery diversified into
soft drinkA soft drink is a drink that does not contain alcohol . Soft drinks are often carbonated and commonly consumed while cold. The most common soft drinks are colas, flavored water, sparkling water, iced tea, sweet tea, lemonade, squash and fruit punch....
s in 1922 with the construction of the Royal soft drinks plant. It then expanded into ice cream and dairy products in 1925 with the Magnolia ice cream plant.
In 1927, San Miguel secured the first non-US national
Coca-ColaCoca-Cola is a carbonated soft drink sold in stores, restaurants and vending machines internationally. The Coca-Cola Company claims that the beverage is sold in more than 200 countries...
bottling and distribution franchise. The company owned 70 percent of the joint venture, which grew to become Coke's sixth largest operation. By the early 1990s, San Miguel had captured over two-thirds of the domestic soft drink market.
Expanding and modernizing the company, however, meant diluting family control. San Miguel was the first Filipino company to be owned by thousands of shareholders. To retain control, the Sorianos relied on their alliances with relatives and associates.
Before
World War IIWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world's nations, including all great powers, organized into two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
broke out, San Miguel had built a glass factory in Paco and the
CebuCebu is a province in the Philippines, consisting of Cebu island and 167 surrounding islands. It is located to the east of Negros, to the west of Leyte and Bohol islands...
Royal plant, its first installation outside
LuzonLuzon is the largest and most economically and politically important island in the Philippines and one of the three island groups in the country, with Visayas and Mindanao being the other two...
. When the war reached the Philippines, Soriano was commissioned as a
colonelColonel is a military rank of a commissioned officer, with corresponding ranks existing in almost every country in the world. It is also used in some police forces and other paramilitary rank structures...
and served as an aide to General
Douglas MacArthurGeneral of the Army Douglas MacArthur was an American general, United Nations general, and Field Marshal of the Philippine Army. He was a Chief of Staff of the United States Army during the 1930s and later played a prominent role in the Pacific theater of World War II...
. One of the first Filipino brewmasters was Dominador Santos, a chemist from
Obando, BulacanObando is a 2nd class municipality in the province of Bulacan, Philippines. It is 16 kilometers away from the Philippine capital Manila. Obando is locked by two cities from Metro Manila namely Valenzuela City in the east, Navotas and Malabon City in the south, Bulacan in the north, and the waters...
.
After the war, San Miguel rebuilt and mounted a large-scale expansion program. The company acquired and modernized a second brewery in Polo,
BulacanBulacan , officially called the Province of Bulacan or simply Bulacan Province, is a first class province of the Republic of the Philippines located in the Central Luzon Region in the island of Luzon, north of Manila , and part of the Metro Luzon Urban Beltway Super...
in 1947. Two years later, five other plants were opened: the Manila glass plant in Farola, a carbon dioxide plant in Otis, a carton plant, the
IloiloIloilo is a province of the Philippines located in the Western Visayas region. Iloilo occupies the southeast portion of Panay Island and is bordered by Antique to the west and Capiz and the Jintotolo Channel to the north. Just off Iloilo's southeast coast is the island of Guimaras, once part of...
Coca-Cola plant and the Farola power plant. Exports of San Miguel Pale Pilsen resumed. New soft-drink plants followed in
DavaoDavao refers to several closely-related places in Mindanao in the Philippines. The term is used most often to refer to the city.*Davao Region, the administrative region*Davao del Norte province*Davao del Sur province*Davao Oriental province*Davao City...
and
NagaThe Municipality of Naga is a municipality in the province of Cebu, Philippines. According to the 2007 census, it has a population of 95,163 people....
.
In 1953 Soriano signed the so-called "Manila Agreement" which allowed the Spanish beer brewing subsidiary La Segarra to become independent of its parent company. La Segarra continued producing its own line of beers under the San Miguel brand.
Growth and expansion: 1964 to 1984
A new era dawned in the 1960s, signaled by a new corporate name (the company's name was shortened to San Miguel Corporation), a new head office along
Ayala AvenueAyala Avenue is an avenue in Makati City in the Philippines. It is one of the busiest thoroughfares in Metro Manila, crossing through the heart of Makati's central business district. Because of the many businesses located on the avenue, Ayala Avenue is aptly nicknamed the Wall Street of the...
in Makati and Soriano's death in 1964.
At the time of his death, Soriano had parlayed his family's vast San Miguel fortune into
miningMining is the extraction of valuable minerals or other geological materials from the earth, usually from an ore body, vein or seam. Materials recovered by mining include base metals, precious metals, iron, uranium, coal, diamonds, limestone, oil shale, rock salt and potash...
,
dairiesA dairy is a facility for the extraction and processing of animal milk—mostly from cows or goats, but also from buffalo, sheep, horses or camels —for human consumption. Typically it is a farm or section of a farm that is concerned with the production of milk, butter and...
, factories, a
newspaperA newspaper is a publication containing news, information, and advertising. General-interest newspapers often feature articles on political events, crime, business, art/entertainment, society and sports. Most traditional papers also feature an editorial page containing columns that express the...
and a
radio stationRadio broadcasting is an audio broadcasting service, broadcast through the air as radio waves from a transmitter to an antenna and a thus to a receiving device. Stations can be linked in radio networks to broadcast common programming, either in syndication or simulcast or both...
. He had investments in
Philippine AirlinesPhilippine Airlines, Inc. , also known historically as Philippine Air Lines, is the national airline of the Philippines....
, held the largest Coca-Cola franchise, and owned five
insuranceInsurance, in law and economics, is a form of risk management primarily used to hedge against the risk of a contingent loss. Insurance is defined as the equitable transfer of the risk of a loss, from one entity to another, in exchange for a premium, and can be thought of as a guaranteed and known...
agency distributorships, a
Kansas CityKansas City is the largest city in the U.S. state of Missouri. It encompasses in parts of Jackson, Clay, Cass, and Platte counties. It is one of two county seats of Jackson County, the other being Independence, just to the city's east...
brewery that made Lone Star and
Colt 45Colt 45 is a brand of beer introduced by National Brewing Company in the spring of 1963. Through a series of mergers and acquisitions, the National Brewing Company and its brands are today owned by the Pabst Brewing Company....
, gold mines in
British East AfricaBritish East Africa was an area of East Africa controlled by Britain in the late 19th century, which became a protectorate covering roughly the area of present-day Kenya...
and a development company in
SpainSpain , officially the Kingdom of Spain , is a country located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula.
[The Spanish constitution does not establish any official denomination of the country, even though España , Estado español and Nación española are used interchangeably...]
.
Antonio Roxas was elected chairman of San Miguel and Andres Soriano, Jr. became president in 1964.
Soriano, Jr. has been credited with instituting modern management theory, including decentralization along product lines.
The Mandaue complex was inaugurated in 1967, and the Mandaue brewery and glass plant commenced operations a year later. In 1973, San Miguel sales exceeded a billion pesos for the first time and profits topped the hundred-million-peso mark.
A new corporate logo was adopted in 1975. The
escudoThe escudo is a unit of currency. It was used in Portugal, in Spain and in their colonies and continues in use in several nations today. Currently, Cape Verde uses the escudo as its unit of currency. Escudo is Portuguese and Spanish for "shield"...
, the symbol of the royal grant, was retained for beer, its original grantee.
Soriano Jr. continued to diversify the food business during the early 1980s, expanding into
poultryPoultry is the category of domesticated birds that people keep for the purpose of collecting their eggs, or killing for their meat and/or feathers. These most typically are members of the superorder Galloanserae , especially the order Galliformes and the family Anatidae , commonly known as...
production in 1982, building an
ice creamIce cream or ice-cream is a frozen dessert usually made from dairy products, such as milk and cream, combined with fruits or other ingredients and flavours. Most varieties contain sugar, although some are made with other sweeteners. In some cases, artificial flavourings and colorings are used in...
plant in 1983 and adding
shrimpShrimp are swimming, decapod crustaceans classified in the infraorder Caridea, found widely around the world in both fresh and salt water. Adult shrimp are filter feeding benthic animals living close to the bottom. They can live in schools and can swim rapidly backwards. Shrimp are an important...
processing and freezing in 1984.
Over the decades, San Miguel earned a formidable reputation as a fierce competitor. The company used all the tools at its disposal. When it could not beat a rival through traditional means, it acquired and intimidated upstarts into submission.
The Filipino government's complicity did not hurt, either. Long protected by high tariffs, San Miguel encountered its first major competitor in the beer market in the late 1970s. That was when
Asia BreweryAsia Brewery is a brewery founded in 1982 in Makati City, the Philippines. It is one of only two breweries in the Philippines, and is the smaller of the two, with only 10% market share...
Inc. entered the segment. The rivalry between Asia Brewery and San Miguel came to a head in 1988, when Asia Brewery cannily introduced a bargain-priced "brand" called, simply, "Beer." (Asia Brewery also called the brand as "Beer na Beer").The imported product looked and tasted like its primary competitor, playing upon the fact that in the Philippines, the San Miguel brand was synonymous with "beer." It was a creative counter to San Miguel's notoriously aggressive and sometimes cutthroat competitive strategy, which had reportedly included "attempts to sabotage Asia Brewery's sales network and smash its empty bottles." Asia Brewery even hired away San Miguel's brewmaster.
At that time, The Brewery buildings in San Miguel District were demolished upon transfer to the Philippine Government as Property of Malacanang Palace. The site became a park as of today.
Turbulence: 1984 to 1986
Soriano Jr.'s administration also witnessed battles for corporate control. A thorny issue of management transparency broke the Sorianos' longstanding alliance with the Zobel-Ayala clan. The result was a historical corporate battle that resulted in the loss of effective control by both the Sorianos and Zobels of San Miguel. Both families were related to each other through the line of Pedro Pablo Roxas.
In 1983, Enrique Zobel, a wealthy cousin of the Sorianos who owned the Zobel-Ayala real estate and banking group and was vice chairman of the San Miguel board, instigated a takeover on his own. The seeds of the "family feud" lay in the refusal of the Soriano-led management to share corporate information with Zobel, especially regarding contracts that SMC management was entering into with companies under the A. Soriano group. The Sorianos viewed Zobel as a competitor, while Zobel (holding nearly 20% of SMC stake) viewed the Sorianos (with about 7%) as mismanaging the company and engaging in sweetheart deals.
Unable to oust Soriano Jr., Zobel sold his group's 19.5-percent stake to
Eduardo Cojuangco, Jr.Eduardo Murphy Cojuangco, Jr. , also known as Danding Cojuangco, is the chairman of San Miguel Corporation, the largest food and beverage corporation in the Philippines and former governor of Tarlac....
, a resourceful businessman and an astute political adviser of then President
Ferdinand MarcosFerdinand Emmanuel Edralin Marcos was President of the Philippines from 1965 to 1986. He was a lawyer, member of the Philippine House of Representatives and a member of the Philippine Senate . He was Senate President in 1963...
. Cojuangco's Coconut Industry Investment Fund (a.k.a.,
United Coconut Planters BankThe United Coconut Planters Bank, more popularly known by its initials, UCPB, or by its old name, Cocobank, is one of the largest banks in the Philippines, ranking within the top twenty banks in the Philippines in terms of assets. The bank, owing to its name, caters heavily to coconut farmers, but...
) accumulated an additional 31 percent of San Miguel, giving him effective control of the conglomerate and leaving the Soriano family with a mere 3 percent. Funds used by Cojuangco to acquire Zobel's stake came from levies imposed by the Marcos dictatorship on coconut farmers. The Supreme Court has declared such levies to be public funds and therefore any assets bought using these funds are owned by coconut farmers.
When Soriano Jr. died of cancer in 1984, Cojuangco scooped up the chairmanship of San Miguel in 1984. That same year, San Miguel moved to a new head office in Mandaluyong.
Cojuangco brought coconut oil milling and refining operations into San Miguel's portfolio. His reign, however, was cut short when Marcos was toppled in 1986.
After the People Power Revolution in 1986,
Corazon AquinoMaria Corazon "Cory" Sumulong Cojuangco Aquino was the 11th President of the Philippines and the first woman to hold that office. Aquino was also the first elected female head of state in Asia...
, Cojuangco's estranged cousin, became president of the Philippines. Aquino rode on the crest of widespread public outrage over the assassination of her husband,
Benigno Aquino, Jr.Benigno Servillano "Ninoy" Aquino, Jr. was a Philippine Senator, Governor of Tarlac, and an opposition leader against President Ferdinand Marcos. He was assassinated at the Manila International Airport upon returning home from exile in the United States...
, in 1983. One of the people she blamed for her husband's death was Cojuangco, who fled on the same private jet as Marcos to Hawaii in 1986.
The Aquino administration sequestered Cojuangco's stake in San Miguel and agreed to let Soriano Jr.'s son, Andres Soriano III, run the company although the Soriano family's holdings had by then dwindled to a mere 1 percent.
Soriano III launched a campaign to reclaim the family legacy, but when he tried to buy back the abandoned shares, he was blocked by the Aquino administration's Presidential Commission on Good Government. The PCGG assumed control (but not legal ownership) of the 51.4-percent stake and refused to relinquish it. The government asserted that the stake had been illegally obtained.
In the 1970s, Marcos imposed a tax on the production of coconuts, a major Philippine cash crop, with the proceeds supposed to fund that industry's development. It was alleged, however, that the money was funneled into the Cojuangco-controlled United Coconut Planters Bank, and that Cojuangco then used much of the funds to help him purchase his controlling stake in San Miguel. The controlling interest carried nine of San Miguel's 15 directors seats with it.
The PCGG continued to tend its San Miguel stake into the early 1990s, but it acceded
de facto control of the conglomerate to Soriano III via a management contract with his A. Soriano Corp.
Soriano III continued the company's program of expansion, acquiring majority control of La Tondeña Distillers Inc., the leading producer of hard liquor in the Philippines, in 1987 and adding beef and pork production to the company's food operations in 1988.
Internationalization: 1986 to 1998
Soriano III led the company to a new era of growth based on internationalization, hoping to expand into other countries and mitigate the effects of the Philippines' unstable economy. He also wanted to head off encroaching competition from the world's biggest breweries, namely
Anheuser-BuschAnheuser-Busch Companies, Inc., a wholly-owned subsidiary of Anheuser-Busch InBev, is the largest brewing company in the United States. The company operates 12 breweries in the United States and nearly 20 in other countries...
and Miller of the United States,
KirinKirin may refer to:*Kirin, the Japanese and Korean word for the Qilin, a mythical beast in Chinese culture and also the word for giraffe in the Ming Dynasty*Kirin Brewery Company, Ltd., a Japanese brewing company...
of Japan, and BSN of France.
Soriano III allocated $1 billion to a five-year strategic internationalization program that focused on shaping up domestic operations, then progressing to licensing and exporting, overseas production, and finally to distribution of non-beer products.
A subsequent decentralization created a holding company structure, with 18 non-beer operations positioned as subsidiaries. This corporate reorganization freed the spun-off businesses from the bureaucratic shackles of a large conglomerate. In the course of this multifaceted effort to attain optimum efficiency, San Miguel reduced its workforce by more than 16 percent, from a 1989 high of 39,138 to 32,832 by 1993.
With its domestic "ducks in a row," San Miguel turned to the next stage in its internationalization, beer licensing and exporting initiative. Although the company had exported beer for most of its history, this effort was intensified dramatically in the late 1980s. San Miguel's beer exports grew by 150 percent from 1985 to 1989 alone, and the brand was soon exported to 24 countries, including all of Asia's key markets as well as the United States, Australia, and the Middle East.
Once the core brand was established in a particular market, San Miguel would begin to create production facilities, sometimes on an independent basis and sometimes in concert with an indigenous joint-venture partner. By 1995, San Miguel had manufacturing plants in Hong Kong, China, Indonesia, Vietnam, Taiwan and Guam.
Thus, in spite of the overarching quarrel regarding San Miguel's ownership (not to mention other problems endemic to operating in the Philippines), the company's sales quintupled from P12.23 billion in 1986 to P68.43 billion by 1994. Net income increased twice as fast, from P1.11 billion to P 11.86 billion over the same period, although San Miguel's overseas operations (as a whole) were not yet profitable.
In 1996 San Miguel purchased full control of its Hong Kong arm, San Miguel Brewery Hong Kong Ltd. In April of the following year, San Miguel's domestic soft-drink bottling unit, Coca-Cola Bottlers Philippines Inc., was merged into the Australia-based
Coca-Cola AmatilCoca-Cola Amatil is an Australian company that bottles and distributes The Coca-Cola Company soft drinks and other beverages in several countries...
Ltd. In effect, San Miguel exchanged its 70-percent interest in a Philippine-only operation for a 25-percent stake in CCA, which had operations in 17 countries. CCA soon demerged the latter operations into a UK-based firm called Coca-Cola Beverages plc (resulting in a reduction of San Miguel's stake in CCA to 22 percent).
From 1995 through 1997, San Miguel suffered from a downturn in its main domestic businesses, while overseas operations were still in the red. Profits plummeted. In response, a major restructuring of the company's loss-making food businesses was undertaken. San Miguel's ice cream and pasteurized milk business was merged with the operations of
NestléNestlé S.A. is a multinational packaged food company founded and headquartered in Vevey, Switzerland, and listed on the SWX Swiss Exchange with a turnover of over 87 billion Swiss francs...
to form Nestlé Philippines Inc., and late in 1998 San Miguel's stake in this business was sold off. San Miguel also exited from the ready-to-eat meal sector and curtailed the operations of its shrimp farming business.
By late 1997, the company was also beginning to feel the effects of the exploding Asian economic crisis.
A new Cojuangco era
Cojuangco wound his way back to the top when the time was right. After returning from exile in 1986, he ran in the 1992 presidential elections with former actor
Joseph EstradaJoseph Ejercito Estrada was the 13th President of the Philippines, serving from 1998 until his ouster in the 2001 EDSA Revolution....
.
Fidel V. RamosFidel Valdez Ramos , also known as FVR, was the 12th President of the Philippines. He succeeded Corazon Aquino and governed until 1998, when he was succeeded by Joseph Estrada...
, an Armed Forces chief who turned on Marcos in 1986, beat Cojuangco resoundingly to the presidency, taking over from Aquino, but Estrada won the vice-presidency. In 1998, Estrada went the whole way, taking Cojuangco with him.
Cojuangco made his comeback in characteristic style. On July 7, 1998, he barged into the boardroom of San Miguel and had himself elected chairman and chief executive officer. Cojuangco took with him an old friend who shared his passion for expensive cars, Ramon Ang. Ang became vice chairman in 1999 and then president and chief operating officer in 2002.
Under Cojuangco's and Ang's most recent reign, San Miguel has grown strong, fortified by their efforts to weed out joint ventures that the company does not control and to enter those which it does. Five years since the two took the company's helm, San Miguel's revenue grew 21 percent and its shares came close to doubling.
In 1999, San Miguel acquired Metro Bottled Water Corp., the company behind the "Wilkins" brand, for P1.4 billion. It bought Sugarland Multi-Food Corp. for P2.9 billion the following year.
In 2001, San Miguel bought Purefoods Corp., a profitable, though not a central, business of the Ayala group, for P7 billion, making San Miguel the Philippines' No. 1 manufacturer of processed food. That same year, the company decided to buy back, in a transaction involving P60 billion, the Coca-Cola business that Soriano III sold to Coca-Cola Amatil. San Miguel ended up owning 65 percent of CCBPI.
In 2002, San Miguel bought low-end soft-drinks maker Cosmos Bottling Corp. from RFM Corp. for P14.1 billion and folded its operations into CCBPI.
In 2002, San Miguel Corporation, through its subsidiary San Miguel Foods Inc, acquired a 144-hectare land in Sumilao, Bukidnon from Norberto Quisumbing Sr. Ignoring the fact that the land was bound to a conversion order which was issued to Quisumbing by Ramos Executive Secretary Ruben Torres, SMFI went on construct a hog farm in the property. The construction was not within the allowed developments according to the land's conversion plan. In 2004, a group of farmers petitioned the Department of Agrarian Reform and the Office of the President for revocation of the conversion order. The farmers argued that both Quisumbing and SMFI failed to comply and violated the conversion order.
Cojuangco and Ang have also been on an international shopping spree. In the past three years, San Miguel has bought six companies in four nearby countries. In 2004, it boosted international sales to 13 percent of total revenues from 10 percent the previous year.
San Miguel's first major acquisition under Cojuangco and Ang was Australian boutique brewer J. Boag and Son for A$96 million in 2000.
San Miguel paid $97 million for Thai Amarit Brewery Ltd. and $35.5 million for food processor TTC (Vietnam) Co. in 2003. In 2004,it bought 51 percent of Berri Ltd., Australia's top juicemaker, for $97.9 million.
To shore up its war chest, San Miguel took in Japanese brewer Kirin Brewery Co. Ltd., which bought a 15-percent stake in San Miguel, for $540 million in 2002. Another strategic partner, the SM retailing giant of tycoon
Henry SyHenry Sy, Sr. is a Chinese Filipino businessman and the founder of SM Group and chairman of SM Prime Holdings, the largest retailer and shopping mall operator in the Philippines. He earned his Associate of Arts degree in Commercial Studies at Far Eastern University in 1950...
, came on board in 2002, securing a 6.2-percent stake valued at P10 billion.
In 2005, the company made its biggest purchase with the takeover of National Foods Ltd., Australia's largest publicly traded dairy, which it bought for P80.38 billion. That was followed later in the year with its $420-million purchase of Singapore-based Del Monte Pacific Ltd., the world's largest pineapple canner.
San Miguel has merged National Foods' operation with Berri. Following the merger, National Foods is now the largest citrus and fruit processor in Australia, packaging half of all fruit juice beverages sold in the continent.
In 2006, San Miguel has sold its 65% stake at its Coca-Cola Philippine venture (including its subsidiaries Cosmos Bottling and Philippine Beverage Partners) to The Coca-Cola Company (TCCC) for $590 million, due difference in management strategies between SMC and partners TCCC.
In October 10, 2007, 55 farmers from Sumilao walked all the way from the homes in barangay San Vicente to Manila covering around 1,700 kilometers in 2 months. The Walk for Land, Walk for Justice earned the support of the Church and civil society organizations. the injustice caused by San Miguel Foods Inc caught the headlines, the Sumilao farmers gained the support of the public. A dialog with President Arroyo was held in December 17, 2007. The following day the Office of the President issued an Order, revoking the conversion order and reverting the land to agricultural classification.
In November 2007, SMC sold
Boag'sBoag's Brewery is an Australian brewery company founded in 1883 by James Boag and son, also named James, in Launceston, Tasmania, Australia. It is owned by the Trans-Tasman company Lion Nathan Ltd.-Establishment and history:...
to
Lion NathanLion Nathan is currently a publicly listed, Japanese-controlled, Australasian alcoholic beverages company with operations in Australia and New Zealand. However, on 17 September 2009, Lion Nathan shareholders overwhelmingly voted to accept a 100% takeover offer by Kirin...
for A$325 million. The same month, SMC also sold
National FoodsNational Foods is an Australian company and wholly-owned subsidiary of the Japanese Kirin Holdings Company Limited, and consequently the Mitsubishi Group....
to
Kirinis a Japanese company. It is a member of the Mitsubishi keiretsu.Kirin sells two of the most popular beers in Japan, Kirin Lager and Ichiban Shibori. In the happoshu category, Kirin Tanrei is the top seller...
for ¥294 billion.
In October 2008, SMC acquired
GSISThe Government Service Insurance System of the Republic of the Philippines, created by Commonwealth Act No...
' shares in
MeralcoThe Manila Electric Company , also known as MERALCO, is the Philippines' largest distributor of electrical power.The word MERALCO, is an acronym for Manila Electric Railroad And Light COmpany, which was the company's original name from 1903 to 1919.MERALCO is the Metro Manila's only electric power...
worth PHP30 Billion.
In December 2008, the company has signed a memorandum of understanding with Qatar Telecom QSC (
QtelQtel used to be the exclusive telecommunications provider in Qatar and is one of the largest public companies in Qatar with about 2000 employees. It was successfully launched on the Doha Securities Market in 1998 and listed on the London Stock Exchange in 1999, the Bahrain Stock Exchange in 2001...
) to build wireless broadband and mobile communications projects in the Philippines. In 2008 of the same month, San Miguel Corporation has taken control of the country's biggest oil refiner,
Petron CorporationPetron Corporation is the largest oil refining and marketing company in the Philippines, supplying more than a third of the country’s oil requirements....
.
San Miguel Brewery, Inc.
San Miguel Brewery, Inc. manufactures and distributes
San Miguel Beer Pale Pilsen, the Philippines' No. 1 beer and a leading brand in Hong Kong and South China. The trade-name San Miguel, originates from the District of San Miguel in Manila as well as the local brewery of San Miguel, Barcelona, Spain. It is one of the world’s largest-selling beers and is among the top 20 beer brands in the world. Its products include San Miguel Beer Pale Pilsen, San Miguel Light, San Miguel Super Dry, San Miguel Strong Ice, San Miguel Premium Lager, Red Horse Beer, and "Cerveza Negra."
San Miguel also produces a wide range of products that are runaway market leaders in their product categories. "Anker Bir" is the second largest-selling beer brand in Indonesia.
Ginebra San Miguel, Inc.
Ginebra San MiguelGinebra San Miguel, Inc. is a Philippines-based diversified alcoholic beverage company owned by San Miguel Corporation, then called La Tondeňa Distillers, Inc. from 1987 to 2003. Founded originally by the late Carlos Palanca, Sr. as La Tondeña, Inc...
, Inc. was incorporated in 1902 by Carlos Palanca Sr. as La Tondeña Incorporada. San Miguel acquired a 70-percent stake in the company in 1987 and renamed it La Tondeña Distillers Inc. Under San Miguel, La Tondeña ventured into the bottled water and fruit juice businesses and became a publicly listed corporation. In 2003, the company's name was again changed to Ginebra San Miguel Inc.
Ginebra San Miguel's flagship brand,
Ginebra San Miguel, is currently the largest-selling gin brand in the world, with 22 bottles consumed every second in the Philippines. The company also makes the
Gran Matador brandy,
Erg alcotonic drink, "Infinit" ready-to-drink alcohol mixes,
Tondeña Premium rum,
GSM Blue variant and the
Vino Kulafu Chinese wine.
San Miguel-Purefoods Co. Inc.
San Miguel-Pure Foods Company, Inc. is the largest Filipino-owned food company, with nearly 3,000 employees deployed in a broad nationwide network of offices, farms, manufacturing, processing and distribution facilities. The Company was formed by Acquiring the stocks of the Ayala's Purefoods-Hormel Company. Purefoods then was one of the competitors of San Miguel before its Acquisition.
It holds in its portfolio the names of some of the most formidable brands in the Philippine food industry, among them,
Magnolia,
Pure Foods,
Monterey,
Star and
Dari Crème (Star and Dari Crème was owned by the Philippine Manufacturing Company-Procter and Gamble Philippines Inc. before acquisition by San Miguel).
B-Meg and
Pure Blend, on the other hand, are the market-leaders in the animal feeds industry.
San Miguel Pure Foods' integrated operations range from breeding, contract growing, processing and marketing of chicken, pork and beef to the manufacture of refrigerated, canned and ready-to-cook meat products, butter, cheese, margarine, oils and fats, as well as animal and aquatic feeds.
San Miguel Packaging Products
San Miguel Packaging Products services many of the region's leading food, pharmaceutical, chemical, beverages and personal care manufacturers. The company serves clients in the United States, Europe, Japan and Australia, among other foreign markets. SMPP manufactures glass bottles, PET bottles, corrugated cartons, flexible packaging, plastic crates and pallets, plastic caps, metal closures and two-piece aluminum libog cans.
San Miguel Properties, Inc.
Established in 1990, San Miguel Properties, Inc. is a leading developer of residential and commercial real estate in the Philippines. Distinguished by and capitalizing on its blue chip parentage, SMPI is moving towards establishing itself as a market leader in the property sector through mixed-use developments with middle-income housing as its main thrust, property leasing, strategic real estate ventures and corporate real estate services.
San Miguel Brewery, Inc.
- San Miguel Brewery Hong Kong Ltd.
- Guangzhou San Miguel Brewery Co. Ltd.
- San Miguel Ritchie Brewery Co. Ltd.
- San Miguel Baoding Brewery Co. Ltd.
- San Miguel Brewery Vietnam Ltd.
- San Miguel Beer Thailand Ltd.
- San Miguel Marketing Thailand Ltd.
- PT Delta Djakarta Tbk
San Miguel-Pure Foods Co., Inc.
- San Miguel Foods Inc.
- Poultry Business
- Feeds Business
- Monterey Foods Corp.
- San Miguel Mills Inc.
- Agribusiness
- Pure Foods Hormel Co. Inc.
- PT San Miguel Pure Foods Indonesia
- Magnolia
- San Miguel Pure Foods (VN) Co. Ltd.
- King's Creameries Ltd.
- Vida
Asia Corp.
- San Miguel Yamamura Fuso Mold Corp.
- San Miguel Rengo Packaging Corp.
- Mindanao Corrugated & Fibreboard Inc.
- SMYPC Manila Glass Plant
- SMYPC Mandaue Glass Plant
- SMYPC Manila Plastics Plant
- SMYPC Metal Closures & Lithography Plant (San Fernando, Canlubang, Mandaue)
- SMYPC Metal Container Plant
- SMYPC Rightpak Plant
- SMYPC PET & Caps Plant Plant
- SMYPC Beverage Packaging Plants (San Fernando, Cebu, Davao)
- Zhaoqing San Miguel Glass Co. Ltd.
- San Miguel Yamamura Haiphong Glass Co. Ltd.
- Foshan San Miguel Packaging Co.
- San Miguel Sampoerna Packaging Industries
- San Miguel Phu Tho Packaging Co. Ltd.
- San Miguel Packaging & Printing Sdn Bhd
- San Miguel Plastic Films Sdn Bhd
- San Miguel Woven Products Sdn Bhd
- Packaging Research Centre Sdn Bhd
Other businesses
- Anchor Insurance Brokerage Corp.
- San Miguel Properties, Inc.
- SMC Stock Transer Service Corp.
- SMITS Inc.
- San Miguel Holdings Inc.
- San Miguel Shipping & Lighterage Corp.
- ArchEn Technologies Inc.
- Bank of Commerce (34.3% ownership)
Basketball teams
- In the Philippine Basketball Association
The Philippine Basketball Association is a professional basketball league in the Philippines founded in 1975. It is the first and the oldest professional basketball league in Asia...
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- Barangay Ginebra Kings
The Barangay Ginebra Kings is a professional basketball team of the Philippine Basketball Association founded in 1979 and owned by the Ginebra San Miguel, Inc., a subsidiary of the San Miguel Corporation...
- Purefoods Tender Juicy Giants
- San Miguel Beermen
The San Miguel Beermen is a professional basketball team in the Philippine Basketball Association. They are a member of the league since its inception in 1975 and hold the most PBA titles with 18....
- In the Philippine Basketball League
The Philippine Basketball League is a commercial semi-professional basketball league in the Philippines. The league is composed of several commercial teams with several collegiate and provincial stars in the fold.-History:...
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- Magnolia Purewater Wizards
The Magnolia Purewater Wizards is a basketball team currently playing in the Philippine Basketball League and is owned by San Miguel Corporation-San Miguel Lagerlite Beermen:* Paul Alvarez* Allan Caidic* Yves Dignadice* Jerry Codinera* Jong Uichico...
- Others:
- San Miguel All-Stars (barnstorming team, to be disbanded)
The San Miguel Foundation for the Performing Arts
- The San Miguel Philharmonic Orchestra
The San Miguel Philharmonic Orchestra is one of the two major performing arts groups under the San Miguel Foundation for the Performing Arts. As a young ensemble, its wide selection of works encompassing musical genres attests to its versatility and dynamism...
- The San Miguel Master Chorale
The San Miguel Master Chorale , now non-existent, was the first professional choir in the Philippines. It was composed of an all-Filipino roster ranging from faculty members and honor graduates of reputable music conservatories, alumni of various internationally awarded choirs, noted choral...
Shareholders
Owners of more than 3% of the Company's voting securities as of March 17, 2006 were as follows:
- CIIF Companies, 24%
- ECJ
Eduardo Murphy Cojuangco, Jr. , also known as Danding Cojuangco, is the chairman of San Miguel Corporation, the largest food and beverage corporation in the Philippines and former governor of Tarlac....
Companies, 17.40%
- Kirin Brewery Co., Ltd., 20.01%
- SM Investments Corp., 10.80%
- Government Service Insurance System, 6.25%
- Social Security System, 5.64%
- Others (University of San Jose-Recoletos and Others), 15.89%
- Familia y Diosdado ladiao Sr., 3.64%
External links