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Strategic issues about smc c ganac pdf
1. PLM DBA 721-Strategic Issues Claro G. Ganac
PAMANTASAN NG LUNGSOD NG MAYNILA
Strategic Issues about San Miguel Corporation
Submitted to
DR. RONALD M. PASTRANA
In partial fulfillment
of the requirements of
DBA 725 -- Strategic Issues and Decisions
By
Claro G. Ganac
2. PLM DBA 721-Strategic Issues Claro G. Ganac
STRATEGIC ISSUES ABOUT SAN MIGUEL CORPORATION
“In April 2012, we completed our investment in a significant stake in Philippine Airlines … In our view, this investment in our flag carrier strengthens our long-term competitiveness… While some investors are not comfortable with the PAL investment, we are confident that once our overall strategies are fully implemented, more will come to appreciate this investment.”
SMC Chairman Eduardo Cojuangco Jr.,
2012 Annual Report
I. Introduction
In the phenomenally successful book “In Search of Excellence”, Peters and Waterman have observed that excellent companies “stick to the knitting”, meaning that they stick to businesses that they know best and where they have advantages and strengths.
This book presented the results of a research project conducted from 1979 to 1980 undertaken by the McKinsey consulting group. They investigated the qualities common to the best-run companies in America. After selecting a sample of 43 companies from six major industries, they examined the firms’ practices closely.
This paper seeks to examine the recent corporate strategies of San Miguel Corporation, one of the country’s largest and most diversified publicly listed companies.
From principally a food and beverage and secondarily a packaging conglomerate, it has diversified into oil refining and marketing, power generation, tollways and expressways and other ventures that have no backward or forward linkage nor similarity with its traditional core business. It also acquired controlling stake in Philippine Airlines and its low-cost carrier subsidiary in 2012 from the Lucio Tan Group.
Observers have noted that San Miguel has been on a buying binge, and had targeted PAL -- Asia’s first airline – as a crown jewel of all its acquisitions. Half a year into the purchase under SMC’s management, it inked an agreement for the purchase of 64 planes from Airbus, which had put PAL into huge liability.
In September this year, SMC later on had to relinquish control and re-sell back to Lucio Tan Group for US$1.3 billion. In newspaper reports in the wake of this development, SMC President Ramon S. Ang admitted that San Miguel lost money on the deal.
This episode in San Miguel’s corporate evolution has sprung open serious questions about the strategic directions that the Cojuangco and Ang management team has aggressively
3. PLM DBA 721-Strategic Issues Claro G. Ganac
taken under its helm in the last 10 to 12 years. In numerous media reports, Ang has been quoted (some observers will probably note as boasting) that SMC will undertake ventures such as constructing a new airport in Metro Manila and going into partnerships with foreign partners, often seemingly without the benefit of a feasibility study (which may take a year or two).
Is the Management of SMC engaging in wheeling-and-dealing to the possible threat and risk of loan default? Is SMC expanding too aggressively and imprudently in industries and areas where it has no competence or strategic advantage? Can SMC still absorb more loans and debt so that it can fund speculative ventures?
These are the questions that have clouded the minds of even experienced professional investors. These concerns have fueled anxieties and have translated to lower share valuations compared to SMC’s peer conglomerates.
A. Objectives of the Paper:
This paper seeks to quickly examine the transformation of San Miguel into an investment and holding company and to assess the diversification efforts into various non-core industries where it has ostensibly no technological competence (being primarily a beverage and food corporation) and operational advantages. It also seeks to:
a. Analyze the effect of the expansion and diversification program in terms of the behavior of share price (as a proxy for shareholder wealth) and investor sentiment.
b. Examine the impact of the expansion on the balance sheet of SMC.
c. Make an over-all evaluation of the validity of the strategic moves of SMC from the perspective of the Resource-Based theory of firm growth.
B. Scope and Limitations of the Study
This paper undertook examination of the corporate actions taken by the current management of SMC in relation to its diversification program. Admittedly, it lacks comprehensive rigor and more in-depth investigations due to time constraints.
The questions posed above in the background introduction certainly will required greater effort and research into data that are not available in existing statistics and disclosures by the company and interested parties.
In view of data availability limitations and time constraints, the student has instead limited the analyses based on the above objectives. The analyses are based on cursory manipulation and evaluation of available data.
The source of data is mainly secondary using online data sources such as the Financial Times online resource, Thomson Reuters, newspaper and media accounts, San Miguel Corporation’s website and corporate annual reports and other available information.
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II. Strategic Shift:
Under the leadership of Cojuangco and Ang as Chairman and President, respectively, SMC has undergone a major strategic shift, streamlining and broadening its business portfolio, reshaping and redefining the very nature of its core businesses.
The sale of both Coca-Cola and Nestle was part of the new management’s effort to restructure the San Miguel Group and focus its technological, managerial and financial strengths to ventures where it believed it could add the most value. The proceeds of the sale of these assets provided it with a cash warchest that it later on deployed into substantial diversification program. It also implemented cost-reduction efforts, including an organizational streamlining and rightsizing program.
While the company has stayed in its traditional business of food, beverage and packaging and expanded through regional acquisitions and integration, it also made inroads into non- related businesses and non-core geographic markets.
San Miguel's first major acquisition under Cojuangco and Ang was Australian boutique brewer J. Boag and Son for A$96 million in 2000. It also expanded into ASEAN countries when it 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 spun off its brewery business into San Miguel Brewery Inc. and took in Japanese brewer Kirin Brewery Co. Ltd., which bought a 15- percent stake for $540 million in 2002.
In 2005, the company made its biggest overseas acquisition 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 region's largest pineapple canner.
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.
In Australia, San Miguel merged National Foods' operation with Berri. It subsequently let go of its Australian business holdings which enabled it to generate one-off financial gains. In November 2007, SMC sold Boag's to Lion Nathan for A$325 million. The same month, it also sold National Foods to Kirin for ¥294 billion.
These financial maneuverings signaled the full transformation of SMC from an operating company to a holding and investment company. This meant that it became active in acquisitions, mergers and divestments of non-related but corporate and financial assets for future financial gains.
5. PLM DBA 721-Strategic Issues Claro G. Ganac
While the global financial meltdown of 2008-2009 sent many companies into full retreat, San Miguel Corporation powered ahead, investing mightily in a strategy to reaccelerate growth and improve margins.
In rapid succession beginning late 2008, SMC bought up shares in power retailer Meralco, paid up for the option to own oil refiner Petron, and acquired a majority stake in Liberty Holdings, a Filipino telco co-owned by Qatar Telecom.
Forays into infrastructure have been successful, with San Miguel now participating in several large-scale projects. It acquired a controlling stake in Citra Philippines, the owner- operator of the Skyway 1 and 2, and a significant shareholder in the subsidiary that operates the South Luzon Expressway. Thus, it has directly positioned itself against the Metro Pacific group which is the concession owner of the North Luzon Expressway and is active in the bidding for PPP infrastructure projects.
Chart 1. The SMC Group’s Business Interests
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It bid for and acquired the concession for the construction of the P19 billion, 88.5 kilometre two-lane Tarlac Pangasinan La Unión Expressway which began April 2010; at present, the project is mid-way to completion, with the portion of the highway up to Rosales, Pangasinan now open. TPLEX is the first of 3 road projects that Ang has on stream.
In October 2010, SMC finalized a deal to acquire 51% interest in Universal LRT Corp. Ltd., the company in charge of developing the Metro Rail Transit Line 7 (MRT7). It also acquired the concession to build the Skyway Stage 3 which will connect NLEX and SLEX in 2012. Its subsidiary Transaire Development also acquired the PPP project for the modernization of the Caticlan Boracay Airport.
In a relatively short period, the company’s energy subsidiary San Miguel Energy has become the largest power producer in Luzón. It now owns the 1000 MW Sual power plant, the San Roque hydropower plant and the 600 MW Limay power plant.
Mining is another industry that Ang has been keen to enter. In early October 2010, SMC bought 10% of Australia’s Indophil Resources, NL, a company which owns a 37.5% stake in the Tampakan copper-gold project, the Philippines’ largest.
SMC has also expanded its oil and energy business with the purchase of Esso Malaysia Berhad (65%), ExxonMobil Borneo Sdn Bhd (100%) and ExxonMobil Malaysia Sdn Bhd (100%) for US$577.3 million.
In April 2012, SMC bought a 49% minority stake in Philippine Airlines (PAL) Holdings, worth US$500 million, to revitalize PAL and Air Philippines. As reported earlier, SMC had to relinquish and sell-back this stake to the Lucio Tan Group, but not after making a billion- dollar deal with Airbus for a massive refleeting program.
In between these aggressive ventures, SMC bought a 33 percent stake in the Philippines’ largest power distributor, Meralco, in 2009. In 2013, SMC sold off this Meralco share block and enabled it to book a P40 billion gain which provided a hedge against the effects of the appreciation of the US dollar in the second half of 2013. These earnings completely offset foreign exchange losses arising from dollar-denominated debt amounting to about P15.6 billion, brought about by the strengthening of the US dollar in the second half of 2013. (SMC Press Release, March 27, 2014).
Moreover, SMC owns the medium-sized Bank of Commerce through its property subsidiary, San Miguel Properties Inc.
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III. Issues and Challenges About SMC’s Diversification Program
SMC’s Management has been explicit about its overarching goal and direction to maximize the Company’s value and profitability. In the 2013 Annual Report, Chairman Cojuangco rationalized and explained why it has aggressively pursued its diversification program:
“As one of the country’s largest conglomerates, with a history that stretches back 124 years, we recognize that the value of our business lies in sustaining the Philippines’ growth. It is precisely for this reason that we have anchored our diversification on projects that will help improve the lives of our countrymen and bring about progress.”
This is an explanation why SMC had ventured into infrastructure development and concessions, power, oils and fuels, airlines, mining and banking. These are areas where SMC had heretofore not engaged in as businesses prior to 1998 when the new management team came on board.
In the initial years following its diversification into non-core businesses, SMC showed better financial performance. But by 2010, the diversification program became more speculative with acquisitions into ventures where there are no significant cash income streams and which required huge capital outlays (which by virtue of time constraints, the student could not dig into and present for the purpose of this study). These ventures resulted in critical issues and challenges that have put into question the validity of the diversification program. Below are the key issues:
A. Reduced cash flows
SMC’s acquisition of Petron – one of the country’s largest companies in terms of sales revenues – and the Sual power plant and another generating asset enabled it to consolidate these latter company’s profits into the company’s profit statement. Thus, from net earnings of P8.63 billion in 2007 at the time of the announcement of its diversification program, this jumped more than six-fold to P57.8 billion (P19.20 per share) in 2009.
However, SMC could not sustain this quantum leap improvements in profitability because it continued its “buying spree” at the same pace, participating and winning bids in infrastructure ventures and concessions which are more developmental and have long gestations than the previous investments in fully operational companies. Thus, EPS nosedived from P19.20 in 2009 to less than P6 in 2010, and further down to P5.00 in 2011 (See Chart 2).
Cash flow dropped to –P85 billion in 2010 from more than P100 billion in 2009 as it felt the burden of new (non-revenue contributing) acquisitions and investments. Net cash flows from traditional businesses and the new operating subsidiaries were wiped out in 2011 and 2012.
9. PLM DBA 721-Strategic Issues Claro G. Ganac
In the 2013 Annual Report, Chairman Cojuangco admitted that concerns about the Company’s leverage position on its risk profile which has extended into its share prices:
“We also faced head-on issues that resulted in a decline in our share price. In the area of debt management, we have taken great care to proactively manage our liabilities by availing of lower interest rates and longer payment terms. We have been able to draw up a more flexible repayment schedule that closely matches the targeted completion of major projects. In short, we will be using mostly income or savings generated from our new projects to service our debts. Today, our net debt- to-EBITDA ratio is at a healthy 3.14x.”
Chart 3. SMC Total Assets and Total Debt
C. Negative Investor Sentiment
The debt overhang has precipitated a sell down by institutional investors and shareholders, resulting in low share prices that bottomed to P56 in 2014, a continuous downslide from the high of about P180 in early 2011 (Chart 4. Five-Year SMC Stock Prices).
10. PLM DBA 721-Strategic Issues Claro G. Ganac
While share prices has improved to P75 to 78 per share, over-all investor valuations have remained low considering the improvement in net earnings and EBITDA in 2013, thus showing lingering concerns about SMC’s management. Price-earnings ratio (PER) is below P5.00 per share. (PER is the amount paid by investors per P1 of net earnings made by a listed corporation.)
Chart 4. Five-Year SMC Stock Prices (2010 – 2014)
Comparatively, the two large and diversified conglomerates against which it is ranged – Ayala Corporation and Metro Pacific – have much better valuations than SMC. Both Ayala and MPI are engaged in related businesses such as infrastructure (water distribution, tollways, oil refining) that SMC is currently in.
Ayala has a PER of P25.23 and Metro Pacific has a PER of almost P16.00, versus the P4.88 of SMC. It is also currently trading at less than Book Value per Share of P0.78 compared to the P2.71 and P1.24 of Ayala and Metro Pacific, respectively. In other words, SMC is considered an inferior stock in the perception of investors, very likely due to the anxieties over its debt load and management consideration of enterprise risks.
Chart 5. Comparative Investor Valuations: SMC vs. Peer Companies
Earnings Per Share
Price Earnings Ratio
Price to Book
Ayala Corporation
26.9473
25.2344
2.7053
Metro Pacific
0.3057
15.9961
1.2382
San Miguel Corporation
15.7950
4.8750
0.7760
11. PLM DBA 721-Strategic Issues Claro G. Ganac
D. Inter-locking Ownership between SMC and its Subsidiary Top Frontier Investments
In 2012, SMC formed a subsidiary which it used to acquire the 25% stake held by the Government that corresponded with the previously sequestered Coconut Industry Investment Fund SMC shareholdings.
In other words, SMC’s Management used the Company’s own money to buy back its own shares through this subsidiary, and Management retains control of both the parent company and the successor company This represented a cross ownership between San Miguel as Top Frontier Investments Holdings, Inc. the parent of SMC by virtue of this transaction. The Company shelled out close to P58 billion to close the transaction. . Some legal scholars term this as an “incestuous” legal relationship.
Exacerbating the issue of the buy-back and cross-ownership is that the move made SMC’s stock illiquid. Its public float is just about 12 – 14 percent. As a result, SMC is the only top Philippine corporation that is not included in the Philippine Stock Exchange composite index.
To address this issue, Management converted SMC’s 49% stake in Top Frontier to property dividends for SMC shareholders. The total 240,196,000 common shares were given out at the beginning of 2014 to SMC shareholders who received one Top Frontier common share for every ten SMC common shares.
It was rationalized (See 2013 SMC Annual Report) that the property dividends provided SMC shareholders an opportunity to benefit from owning Top Frontier shares. Apart from investment in SMC, Top Frontier is reported to also own gold, nickel and copper mining assets that have considerable potential for development.
E. Unanticipated Major Risks and Uncertainties
SMC Management’s overly aggressive expansion and its miscalculation of the full impact of dependence on external borrowings in its investment program has put into serious question its prudence in the treatment of enterprise risks. It has relied on two key capital raising activities that had not materialized:
a. The Initial Public Offering of San Miguel Global Power Inc. which was supposed to have listed primary shares and to have raised substantial amount that would have added to the cash reserves of SMC.
b. The failed listing of San Miguel Brewery Inc. After spinning off its brewing assets into this subsidiary, it sold 49% of the shares to Kirin Brewery of Japan which enabled it to generate investment gains that were booked into cash reserves. But even if it had listed its shares in the PSE, the offering failed to take shape because of SMC’s
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reluctance to offer a significant percentage as float to the general public. Consequently, the PSE ordered the delisting of the stock.
Both of these ill-fated attempts tarnished the image of SMC and its management, and seemed to shore up perceptions that it has gone into high-finance just to continue with its ambitious expansion program. At one time the media reported that President Ramon Ang planned to sell 1 billion SMC shares back in December 2012. The deal worth about $3 billion would not have been possible because that number is way in excess of SMC’s outstanding shares. These sudden and rash media announcements, of course, do not contribute to the credibility of SMC’s Top Management.
In addition, SMC’s Management again did not foresee the credit tightening of the BSP and the downslide in the Philippine stock market in 2011 to 2012, which forced its hand to resort to high interest-bearing debt to finance its speculative PPP bids and acquisitions and start-up investments.
It undertook dollar-denominated bond offering of as much as $1.5 billion at the time when the US eased up on its quantitative easing program as the US economy started to pick up in 2012. This resulted in the appreciation of the US dollar, which jacked up in turn the interest cost of the dollar-denominated borrowings. Consequently, it had to book P16 billion in forex losses.
IV. Evaluation of SMC Diversification Using the Resource-Based View of Growth
A. Penrose’s Theory of Growth of the Firm
Edith Penrose (The Theory of the Growth of the Firm,1959) was one of the early scholars who espoused the Resource-Based Theory in firm behavior and strategic management. She argued that a business organization will seek to achieve the full potential from all its resources. Penrose’s view was that firms possess excess resources, which can be used for diversification purposes, and which then can fuel growth.
Firms grow as long as there are unused resources, diversifying when they can no longer grow with existing products, services and markets. Growth continues until it is halted.
Changes can free the limit, and growth continues until the next limiting factor appears.
She has been credited by several authors as antedating and developing the seminal ideas on the resource-based view theory of the firm (Alan M. Rugman and Alain Verbeke, “Edith Penrose’s Contribution To The Resource-Based View Of Strategic Management”, Strategic Management Journal, pp 769-780, 2002).
13. PLM DBA 721-Strategic Issues Claro G. Ganac
Her main intellectual contribution to strategic management theory is that the firm may be viewed as a collection of fungible resources and, second, that an optimal pattern of firm expansion may exist, which requires a balanced use of internal and external resources in a particular sequence (Penrose 1959). She also believed that the optimal growth of the firm involves a ‘balance between exploitation of existing resources and development of new ones.’
The resource-based view sees that the competitive advantage of a firm lies primarily in the application of a bundle of valuable tangible or intangible resources at the firm's disposal (Penrose, 1959). To transform a short-run competitive advantage into a sustained competitive advantage requires that these resources are heterogeneous in nature and not perfectly mobile, meaning that the resources that the firm controls are not imitable nor substitutable without great effort. If these conditions hold, the bundle of resources can sustain the firm's above average returns.
The resource-based view approach to strategic management consists of the following four characteristics:
1. The resource must be valuable if the resource-based approach is to achieve sustained, above-normal returns, as compared to rivals. Even when a particular strategy appears optimal for an organization, serious consideration must be given to where the money to finance the strategy is going to come from, and what its costs are.
2. A set of resources, not equally available to all firms, and their combination into competences and capabilities, are a precondition for sustained superior returns. Some of the resources can be property rights, which are exogeneously granted by an outside authority (such as government concessions), information asymmetry.
3. Competences and capabilities lead to sustained superior returns, to the extent that they are firm specific (i.e., imperfectly mobile), valuable to customers, non-substitutable and difficult to imitate. Capabilities are endogenous to the firm, and are built through time. This can also include distribution channels, supply chains, knowledge and technologies and brands with high consumer equity.
4. From a dynamic perspective, innovations, especially in terms of new resource combinations, can substantially contribute to sustainable superior returns.
These four parameters will be used as a framework whether SMC had implemented its value-creating strategy of diversification effectively.
B. SMC Acquisitions Validation Using the Resource-Based View Framework
SMC’s initial foray into expansion in the 1990s after it divested itself of its holdings in Nestle and Coca-Cola had been in Purefoods, a processed meats manufacturer. Based on the resource-based view analysis, the acquisition is value-creating in all four aspects of the
14. PLM DBA 721-Strategic Issues Claro G. Ganac
proposed framework. This acquisition has resulted in SMC’s undisputed position in the food business with market-leading brand names in its portfolio.
Purefoods is allied to SMC’s meats and chicken business, and the expansion into an iconic processed meats brand creates synergy not only in terms of marketing and sourcing, but also across SMC’s supply chain and distribution management. In addition, SMC executives and staff are very knowledgeable in the food manufacturing and has linkages with its commercial feeds business.
SMC’s subsequent entry and investment into non-core businesses are, on the other hand, a different matter and requires a more thorough analysis and assessment. Below is this resource-based view strategic analysis in its new business.
Diversification Field
Resource-Based Parameter
Comment (Positive/Negative)
Oil refining and fuels
Financial acquisition
+ Investment came from internal funds; fully operational
Resources not available to all competitors, unique
+ Oil refining technology is a highly specialized resource; largest marketing network
Competencies
+ Petron employees are career oriented with knowhow/skills; effective back-end and front-end supply chain
Innovations
+ Continuous investments in facilities upgrading
Power generating
Financial acquisition
+ Investment came from internal funds when SMC was still cash positive; fully operational
Resources not available to all competitors, unique
+ Sual power plant was acquired from Mirant, a highly established international power company; San Roque plant also operational
Competencies
+ Mirant’s technology and staff operational expertise are superior; can be used in new Davao and Bataan power plants
Innovations
+ Clean coal energy technology reported to be used in new plants
Infrastructure and Tollway Operation and Management
Financial acquisition
- Large upfront financial outlays made for PPP projects; funds sourcing is mixed internal and debt; Citra, however, is a going concern, but contribution now not large enough to cover the new investment outlays
15. PLM DBA 721-Strategic Issues Claro G. Ganac
Resources not available to all competitors, unique, non- substitutable
+ SMC Management appears to have connections with government (unique), with information asymmetry
Competencies
- Tollway construction and operation and management are not strengths of SMC; the greenfield infrastructure projects are to be implemented from scratch; design capability not clear
Innovations
- Unclear effort at innovation because of lack of firm-specific competencies.
Mining
Financial acquisition
- SMC only has minority stakes in Indophil; mining is highly speculative
Resources not available to all competitors, unique, non- substitutable
- Tampakan project is potentially world’s largest gold mine; but now non-operational now because of legal and stakeholder issues; Nonoc island nickel mining project remains problematic
Competencies
- SMC has no experience in mining, nor does it have access to associates with expertise and experience in this field.
Innovations
- Unclear inputs that SMC could give to proponents; Tampakan uses open-pit mining which has high environmental impact
Airline
Financial acquisition
- High acquisition cost; hindsight showed negative gain from the investment upon divestment
Resources not available to all competitors, unique, non- substitutable
Mixed - PAL management and operating staff remains in the company; but downsizing program implemented was highly contentious and there is high probability of financial liabilities; SMC’s connections with the government had enabled it to open landing rights to destinations in Europe
Competencies
- SMC people has no competence in the airline business; operational systems, management structures and human resource systems are entirely different; airline is highly competitive
Innovations
+ SMC instituted fleet modernization program and secured air rights to some markets; but making the airline
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profitable may take more doing in this highly competitive industry.
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V. Conclusions
Based on the foregoing analysis, the following may be concluded:
a. SMC’s reputation and image has been hurt by the ambitious and somewhat speculative diversification into non-related businesses, and by the apparent lack of caution and due diligence in the overpriced bids it made on the high-profile infrastructure projects.
b. This has extended to and is validated by the negative investor sentiment for the stock and the below-average price valuations for its shares. This poor investor appetite will affect any fund-raising activity it may embark on that is related to equity investments by the investing public.
c. SMC’s financial condition has been significantly affected by its ambitious diversification; there appears to be a lack of basic financial management concepts, with poor matching of revenue streams and interest amortizations on large-scale loans. There was also non- matching of the loan tenor and the long-term nature and gestation of infrastructure projects.
d. SMC, based on the resource-based framework, has invested correctly in the oil and fuels business and in the power generating business. Even on a cursory scale, the investments appear to be paying off, with reported annual improvements in revenues and profits a year or two after the investment. These two operating ventures are value-creating investments and have added to the competitive advantage of SMC as a conglomerate.
e. There is however some negativity in its investment into infrastructure construction and concessions because of the high acquisition cost for the project, even if Management has parlayed its advantages in political connections and information asymmetry to winning the PPP bids.
f. The investment in the airline business and mining appear to be ill-advised.