FPHC to sell additional 1.7% in Meralco

Written by Miguel R. Camus
BusinessMirror

LOPEZ-led First Philippine Holdings Corp. (FPHC) may sell more of its remaining stake in Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) to the group of businessman Manuel V. Pangilinan, a top company official said on Thursday.

This, as the family’s listed holding firm reportedly wants to maintain only a “strategic presence” in the power distributor or one board seat, said FPHC president Elpidio L. Ibañez.

FPHC is now looking at whether it can sell another 1.7 percent, valued at P3.8 billion based on the utility’s closing price yesterday of P198 each. This will come from its remaining 6.7-percent holding in Meralco. Pangilinan’s Metro Pacific initially secured the rights over half of FPHC’s 13.4-percent stake in a deal finalized in late 2009.

“That is one of the things we are working on. [We want to know] how we will be allowed to sell more shares [in Meralco],” Ibañez told reporters in lunch briefing yesterday.

Ibañez disclosed that FPHC is in talks with Metro Pacific on how FPHC can maintain a board seat in the listed power utility with only a “5-percent” interest.

“In a way [it will be] a concession. We want to keep a presence in Meralco so that 5 percent is the threshold for that one board seat,” he added. FPHC’s two seats on Meralco’s board are presently occupied by Manuel M. Lopez and Jose P. de Jesus.

In November, FPHC entered signed a deal with Pangilinan’s Metro Pacific Investments Corp. paving the way for the latter to buy half of its 13.4-percent stake in Meralco. Read more...