PHILIPPINES SOCIAL SECURITY TO BUY SAN MIGUEL SHRS

  The Philippines' Social Security System
  (SSS) is planning to buy eight mln shares in diversified brewer
  &lt;San Miguel Corp> (SMC), SMC chief financial officer Ramon del
  Rosario said.
      He told reporters the government organisation had expressed
  interest in one seat on SMC's 15-man board and was preparing to
  invest 800 mln pesos, assuming a purchase price of 100 pesos a
  share.
      The shares involved in the proposal were part of the block
  of 38 mln shares owned by the United Coconut Planters Bank
  (UCPB) and sequestered by the government.
      The block is split between class A and class B stock.
      SMC also proposed to sell a further five mln shares to A.N.
  Soriano Corp, the family company of San Miguel president Andres
  Soriano, del Rosario said.
      The shares are worth some 500 mln pesos at recent prices.
      Del Rosario said the 14 mln B shares in the block which are
  open to foreign ownership would probably be sold to
  unidentified foreign purchasers.
      He said SMC and UCPB would meet later this week to try to
  resolve disputes over the pricing of the shares.
      President Corazon Aquino earlier this month established an
  arbitration panel to settle a row over the disposal of the
  shares.
      Their initial sale to Soriano through SMC Hong Kong unit
  Neptunia Corp was blocked by the Presidential Commission on
  Good Government.
      The commission sequestered the stock on suspicion that the
  real owner of the block was Eduardo Cojuanco, the former
  chairman of San Miguel and the UCPB and a close associate of
  deposed former president Ferdinand Marcos.
  

