AUSTRALIAN OFFER FOR SAN MIGUEL SHARES Diversified investment company, <Ariadne Australia Ltd>, has offered 3.8 billion pesos for 38 mln shares in the Philippine brewing firm <San Miguel>, a Manila newspaper reported. The Sunday Times quoted a letter sent yesterday to President Corazon Aquino from Ariadne's chairman, New Zealander Bruce Judge, that he was offering cash equivalent to five pct of the nation's yearly budget to buy the shares from the government. The presidential office and Ariadne representatives in Manila were not available for comment on the report. The shares are the entire block seized by the government from the United Coconut Planters Bank (UCPB) on suspicion that the real owner was Eduardo Cojuangco, the former chairman of San Miguel and UCPB and a close associate of deposed president Ferdinand Marcos. The 38 mln shares consist of 24 mln class A stock and 14 mln class B shares. Government officials have said earlier that the more valuable class A shares would not be sold to foreigners. The offer values each share at 100 pesos -- the price at which the Philippine Social Security System suggested it might buy eight mln class A shares last week. "Judge's offer of 3.8 billion pesos is about five pct of the Philippines' yearly budget," Ariadne's Philippine agent Domingo Panganiban was quoted as telling reporters yesterday. "Mr Judge's objective in this investment is to make his corporation's management expertise available to San Miguel so that the company's assets can be fully utilised." San Miguel, the country's largest brewer, is also one of the major manufacturers of grocery lines. Panganiban is quoted as saying that San Miguel could tap food and liquor distribution lines in Australia, Britain, the U.S., New Zealand and Hong Kong through <Barwon Farmlands Ltd>, a listed Australian firm in which it has 30 pct equity. Ariadne, with about one billion dlrs in assets and turnover of about two billion, has interests also in mining, real estate and agricultural products.