Malaysia: San Miguel Corp., Southeast Asia's largest food and beverage group, announced on March 28 it could fund its ambitious regional expansion plans, according to Reuters. "We are at the moment evaluating many companies. All of them, we can handle simultaneously. Our balance sheet is very, very strong. We can leverage it. We can issue bonds," Ramon Ang, the company's president and chief operating officer, told Reuters at the sidelines of a conference in Sabah state on Borneo Island.

San Miguel, 20-percent owned by Japan's Kirin Brewery Co. Ltd., said on March 18 it was considering a bid for New Zealand's second-biggest dairy maker Dairy Food Holdings Ltd.

The company launched a A$1.75 billion ($1.35 billion) bid to buy Australia's National Foods Ltd. in December, and is pushing to acquire 40 % of fruit and juice maker Del Monte Pacific Ltd. from bankrupt Italian food group Cirio.

In the last year, San Miguel has bought a Thai brewery, drinks and hog farm assets in Vietnam, and expanded into Singapore coffee and ice cream businesses. It also acquired a Malaysian packaging business, began building a plant in Indonesia and bought half of Australian juice maker Berri Ltd., Reuters said.

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