San Miguel to spend $300M for brewery expansion in CDO, Laguna

MANILA, Philippines – San Miguel Corporation (SMC) will spend $300 million to construct a new brewery and bottling plant in Cagayan de Oro City and expand its existing facility in Sta Rosa in Laguna, which will happen in two years’ time.

SMC president and COO Ramon Ang told reporters that his group has earmarked $300 million for its brewery unit expansion.

The new Cagayan de Oro plant will initially produce “about one and a half million hectoliters” annually, according to Ang. It will eventually have a full capacity of 3 million hectoliters.

“We will break ground soon,” Ang told reporters.

For SMC’s existing Sta Rosa plant, Ang said his company plans to increase its capacity to “2 to 3 million hectoliters” from its current capacity of one million hectoliters annually.

SMC had earlier said it is investing P281 billion to fund the expansion of its existing businesses until 2020.

The diversified conglomerate said that the capital spending budget covers expansion of its food (P3 billion), oil and fuel (P119.9 billion), power (P156.7 billion), and infrastructure (P210.7 billion) businesses.

For the first 9 months of 2016, SMC’s net income jumped 125% to P42.9 billion from P19.08 billion recorded in the same period in 2015, as all its core businesses posted double-digit growth in terms of operating income. – Rappler.com