	san miguel deal hit by more lawsuits a bid by san miguel corp smc sanm mn to buy back mln sequestered shares from united coconut planters bank ucpb has been hit by two new lawsuits sources in the philippine food and brewery company said a manila court yesterday issued an injunction barring ucpb from selling the shares which represent pct of smc s outstanding capital stock of mln shares until hearings on april on a petition filed by eduardo cojuangco a former chairman of both smc and ucpb cojuangco said the coconut industry investment fund ciif and mln farmers were the rightful owners of the shares cojuangco said the shares were held in trust by ucpb and represented a blue chip investment his petition said ucpb s plans to sell the shares to smc were a serious breach of fiduciary duties the smc sources said the proposed share sale could also be held up by a second derivative suit filed before the securities and exchange commission sec by eduardo de los angeles a government nominee on the company s board de los angeles who represents smc s minority stockholders asked the sec to block the transaction approved last week by the company s board on april the board sanctioned the repurchase of the sequestered shares for billion pesos at pesos per share de los angeles told the sec the company s retained earnings of billion pesos would be wiped out by the purchase of the shares and would prevent the declaration of dividends de los angeles said the share purchase would also violate an smc agreement with its creditors to maintain a to debt to equity ratio he quoted smc s chief financial director ramon del rosario as telling the board that the transaction would boost the ratio to to in petitioning the sec de los angeles amended an earlier suit two weeks ago in which he charged smc chairman andres soriano iii and nine other directors of violating their duties de los angeles earlier complaint related to smc assuming last december a mln dlr loan contracted by smc s hong kong subsidiary neptunia corp for a down payment on the shares the loan assumption was again ratified by last week s board meeting an arbitration panel set up by president corazon aquino to resolve the ownership issue is expected to submit its report by april the amended suit filed by eduardo de los angeles is part of a continuing attempt by certain elements in complete disregard of the facts and with questionable motives to delay an early disposition of the sequestered shares san miguel corp said in a statement coming as it does when san miguel corp and ucpb have reached agreement on the price of the shares and the method of payment this suit is in direct contravention of the government s expressed desire to reach an amicable settlement of the controversy by april the statement added a san miguel spokesman said he had no comment on cojuangco s court petition adding any statement coming from us might be interpreted as adversarial meanwhile ramon diaz the head of a government panel which sequestered the shares last year said soriano was not eligible to buy the major portion of the shares because he was a united states citizen the sequestered shares are split into mln a shares which can only be owned by filipinos and mln b shares which are available to foreign buyers smc sources said soriano personally was not among prospective buyers they said the shares would be purchased by the a soriano group of companies smc neptunia and unnamed institutional investors soriano was named as one of the buyers in a bid in march for mln shares controlled by ucpb the sale was aborted when diaz s presidential commission on good government sequestered the shares on suspicion they were owned by cojuangco a close associate of former president ferdinand marcos cojuangco lives in self imposed exile in the u s the shares grew to mln after a pct stock dividend announced last june we have no objection to soriano buying the b shares diaz told reuters but everything is on hold now the smc spokesman said he did not know if the controversy would be resolved before the company s annual stockholders meeting scheduled for may san miguel corp reported sales revenue of billion pesos in pct above its billion peso sales in it said unaudited net profit was in the neighbourhood of mln pesos an increase of about pct over reuter 
