The sale is aligned with its corporate rehabilitation program, the company told the local bourse on Wednesday.

“On Mar. 1, the Regional Trial Court of Bulacan, Branch 7, issued an order…approving the sale of the company’s non-core assets located in the Visayas and Mindanao to Kormasinc, Inc. for P184 million plus by
way of reduction of corporate debt,” Vitarich said in a disclosure.

The company’s board of directors approved in July 2009 the disposal of several non-core property, plant and equipment and investment property worth P975 million.

The property, plant and equipment and investment property, which are in Visayas and Mindanao, are included in the assets used as collaterals for the company’s restructured long-term debt.

Vitarich, which used to be a big player in the industry, has been under corporate rehabilitation since 2006 because of difficulties in paying off P3.23 billion in loans to various creditors.

The company blamed the Asian financial crisis of 1998 and the avian flu outbreak in 2003 as the reasons behind its financial woes.

Established in 1950 by brothers Feliciano, Lorenzo and Pablo
Sarmiento, Vitarich is engaged in the manufacture and distribution of
various poultry products such as live and dressed chicken, day-old chicks, and animal and aqua feeds.

Shares in Vitarich, whose profits slightly fell to P913,000 in the
first half last year from P920,000 in the previous year, were last
traded on Feb. 18 at P0.44 apiece. — Neil Jerome C. Morales