SM largest Mall of Asia will Acquire into Atlas Mining Philippines for $ 142 Million Dollars

Philippine conglomerate SM Investments Corp said on Friday it will acquire 17.9 percent stake in Atlas Consolidated Mining Corp via a private placement worth $142 million, signaling its entry into the Southeast Asian country's minerals sector.

The buy-in would allow SM, owned by the Philippines' richest man Henry Sy, to take advantage of opportunities in the mining sector, SM chief financial officer Jose Sio said in a statement.

SM will buy a total of 316.2 million shares at 19.56 pesos apiece in Atlas, which is seeking to raise $390 million via equity and convertible notes issues to fund its full takeover of unlisted gold and copper miner Carmen Copper Corp.

The private placement was arranged by BDO Capital Investment Corp, a unit of the SM group's banking arm Banco de Oro Unibank .

Atlas will also issue one-year and five-year convertible notes to Banco de Oro to raise a total $197.8 million. If the notes are all converted into Atlas shares, the SM group would have combined holdings of 33 percent in the miner.

"We are very pleased with the opportunity to be able to make this investment in Atlas at this time," Harley Sy, SM president, said in a statement.

"Atlas is one of the top 20 copper mining companies in the world. It is very well-positioned to take full advantage of its mine site's significant resources to serve its major markets like China and Korea which have a close proximity to the Philippines."

Atlas' Carmen Copper unit operates the 1,674-hectare Toledo mine complex in central Cebu province. The site is estimated to contain about 1.5 billion tonnes of ore, or about 5 million tons of copper.

Carmen Copper plans to spend $200 million to more than double annual capacity to 100,000 tons of copper metal in concentrate in two to three years from the current 42,000 tons. (Reporting by Erik dela Cruz; Editing by Rosemarie Francisco)

 

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The Philippines will destroy ₱10 Billion counterfeited Smuggled Fake goods

Goodbye: Smuggled Fake Goods

The Philippines aims to destroy at least ₱ 10 billion worth of counterfeit goods this year as the country seeks to be removed from a US blacklist of nations tolerating intellectual piracy.

Thursday's crushing of ₱350 million worth of fake designer goods at Camp Crame during the World Anti-Counterfeiting Day was just a "tip of the iceberg," said Ricardo Blancaflor, director of the Intellectual Property Office (PIO).

"This is the only the tip of the iceberg. This is just a small portion of the confiscated goods that we got from the first six months of 2001 which is now P1.4 billion," Blancaflor said.

Bureau of Customs Lito Alvarez said agents have seized ₱50 million pesos worth of assorted counterfeit footwear and audio equipment on Wednesday.

"That is to rid the country of stigma of being referred to as the dumping ground of fake consumer products," said Alvarez as he challenged the IPO to make the ceremonial destruction of intellectual rights monthly instead of yearly.

"Let us not waiver in our belief that together we can win the war against intellectual property rights violators," Alvarez added.

Interior and Local Government Undersecretary Rico Puno said more investors will come in if piracy is curbed in the country.

Optical Media Board chairman Ronald Ricketts urged the Filipinos to protect, safeguard and promote the intellectual property rights of artists and manufacturers.

"We support in this anti-counterfeiting day. Let's buy original," said the former action star.

The Philippines remains on this year's US Trade Representative's lower-level Watch List of countries deemed not to be doing enough to protect intellectual property rights.

But the report, released in May, cited progress made by the Philippines and other trading partners in enacting significant legislation protecting intellectual property

 

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