A meat shop that started over two decades ago as a thesis project of business school student Anthony Mark Ng is ready for primetime.

Now 42 years old, Ng is ready to list North Star Meat Merchants Inc. via a P4.5-billion initial public offering (IPO) in June this year to finance its expansion and transform the company into the "cold chain backbone of the Philippines."

North Star is the major supplier of fresh meat products to the Sy family's vast chain of supermarkets under the SM Group. SM Bonus meats, for one, have been supplied by the company for over 15 years, its IPO prospectus dated March 17 showed.

"North Star believes that it is well-positioned to take advantage of a young and growing meat consuming population. An increase in purchasing power translates to an increase in meat consumption per capita," Ng, North Star chair and CEO, said in a separate statement on Tuesday.

Based on the prospectus, North Star plans to sell 360 million "primary" common shares at up to P10 to raise P3.6 billion.

Major shareholder Golden MJTF Holdings Inc., owned by North Star's vice chair Miguel Tan, is selling an additional P900 million worth of shares. This was made up of 32 million secondary common shares and an over-allotment option of 58 million shares.

Only the money raised from the primary offer would be used for North Star's expansion.

This will also include adding capacity at its main integrated plant in Bulacan, thus cutting its reliance on outsourced cold chain providers, and to build new facilities in areas such as Palawan, Bicol, Iloilo, Bohol and Ilocos to reach new markets.

North Star operates three cold chain facilities—two in Bulacan and one in Cebu—with a combined capacity of about 8.1 million kilograms that help serve 360 meat concessions and over 1,250 stores and outlets nationwide.

Its mobile refrigerators, or reefer vans, can deliver up to 120,000 kg of meat daily. Operations are also supported by over 2,200 butchers. INQ