SMC Retirement Plan, the retirement fund owned by employees of food and beverage giant San Miguel Corporation (SMC), has generated P908.9 million from the sale of its entire nine-percent stake in the Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE) to a London-based investment fund.

A well-placed source at the PSE said Thursday the buyer was GLG Emerging Markets Special Situation Fund.

The PSE for its part disclosed that the first bloc sale involving 4,900 shares were sold at P605.41 per share, which was completed on May 15.

The second bloc involving 1.390 million shares were acquired at P651.81 per share on May 30. The PSE statement, however, did not specifically say that it was SMC Retirement Fund that sold these shares.

“The acquisition [prices] carries a 10-percent premium over the market price. It is a clear indication of the foreign investors’ confidence in the Philippine market. We’re back on the radar screen,” a well-placed PSE source told BusinessMirror in a phone interview.

The source added that the proceeds from the sale will be used by the SMC Retirement Plan to fund future investments in the capital market.

The Retirement Plan is among the institutional investors that bought shares of the PSE when the latter sold around 40 percent stake via a private placement in February 2004. The selling price at that time was P119.50 per share.

PSE was priced P615 per share at the end of trading on Thursday.

The sale of PSE shares is mandated under the Securities Regulation Code (SRC). The brokers, who used to own 100 percent of the bourse, now collectively own 46 percent of the exchange following previous sales.

The law, however, mandates them to further reduce their combined ownership to 20 percent. 

Earlier, the PSE reported a 90.14- percent rise in net profit for the first quarter of 2007 to P102.9 million as against P54.1 million in the same period last year.

The growth was boosted by the increase in bourse’s operating income from P134.6 million to P200.3 million due to higher membership fees bolstered by higher trading volume from January to March.

Meanwhile, operating expenses ending March  31, 2007, was almost the same as that of last year with a slight decrease of only 0.54 percent to P57.6 million.

SMC Retirement Plan, the retirement fund owned by employees of food and beverage giant San Miguel Corporation (SMC), has generated P908.9 million from the sale of its entire nine-percent stake in the Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE) to a London-based investment fund.

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