Price tag of new PLDT buys seen at P5B

BusinessMirror
Written by Lenie Lectura

TELECOM executive Manuel Pangilinan has put a price tag on the recent investment of MediaQuest Holdings Inc. into Associated Broadcasting Co. (ABC 5) and Primedia Inc. The total cost of the new acquisitions is “less than P5 billion,” he said.

ABC 5 owns and operates ABC television Channel 5 which is now called TV5. It is the television network owned by former PLDT (Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co.) chairman Antonio “TonyBoy” Cojuangco. When MediaQuest, the investee company of the PLDT Beneficial Trust Fund, announced its purchase last week it did not disclose the acquisition cost of its 75-percent interest in the TV network.

Primedia, which is backed by Malaysia’s biggest media industry group Media Prima Bhd. (MPB), disclosed last week that the board agreed to divest 70 percent of the company to MediaQuest for $16 million.

The original cost of the investment for MPB’s 70-percent interest in Primedia was only P980,420. Primedia is a local corporation engaged in developing programming content for television and marketing of airtime, specifically for ABC 5.

MediaQuest made an initial downpayment of $500,000 on October 6. Another payment amounting to $7.5 million was scheduled on Friday, while the balance of $8 million will be placed in escrow by MediaQuest.

Pangilinan did not reveal exactly how much his group paid for the recent acquisitions, although he noted that both purchases cost them “less than P5 billion.”

MediaQuest’s investments in ABC-5 and Primedia, its fifth and sixth investments, are in line with its strategy of developing media, content and production resources to complement its other media assets and platforms such as Cignal, a direct-to-home satellite service launched in July this year. By investing in both ABC 5 and Primedia, Mediaquest expects to further enhance TV5’s programming, ratings and sales as well as improve the broadcast network’s coverage and signal strength throughout the country.

When asked if his group was eyeing other attractive assets that may interest MediaQuest in its focus towards multimedia business, Pangilinan said, “not for now. ABC 5 is a big task already.”

“It is a business we know nothing about. We are up against a strong incumbent, malalakas sila,” said Pangilinan. Read More...