(UPDATE) MVP denies asset swap talks, San Miguel insists
By Judith Balea, abs-cbnNEWS.com | 06/05/2009 1:19 PM
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San Miguel's Ramon Ang, PLDT Group's Manuel Pangilinan, and Manuel Lopez after Meralco's stockholder meeting last May 26, 2009 |
MANILA - Metro Pacific Investments Corp. (MPIC) said Friday it did not offer to swap its interests in water distribution and toll road for the stake of diversified conglomerate San Miguel Corporation in the Manila Electric Co. (Meralco).
"MPIC denies offering to swap its interests in Maynilad Water Services Inc. and NLEX (North Luzon Expressway) in exchange for the Meralco shares owned by San Miguel," it told the Philippine Stock Exchange in a disclosure.
MPIC was clarifying news reports that came out Friday that said its chairman Manuel V. Pangilinan approached San Miguel president Ramon Ang to negotiate the asset swap.
In a separate disclosure, Pangilinan himself noted that "both Maynilad and NLEX are key strategic investments for MPIC. They are not available for sale or trade with other assets."
Pangilinan said that they intend to grow and keep the assets for the long term.
Pangilinan chairs MPIC and telecommunications firm Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. (PLDT), which is also a shareholder of Meralco. Both MPIC and PLDT are part of Hong Kong-based conglomerate First Pacific Co. Ltd.
MPIC last year acquired 67.1 percent of the firm which operates the NLEX for P12.3 billion. It owns 56.8 percent of Maynilad, which serves 12 million customers in the west zone of Metro Manila.
San Miguel insists
In its own disclosure, San Miguel confirmed news reports about the asset swap offer, saying "the PLDT Group has expressed an interest to acquire the shares of stock of the company in Meralco."
On Thursday, Ang sat down with a group of business journalists and shared that he and Pangilinan were discussing the supposed swap of assets since "we are friendly with each other, we can still talk."
Ang said that if this were to push through, they would go for the best deal.
He also said that they would only sell their Meralco holdings for a "spectacular" price of say, P500 per share.
San Miguel and PLDT have amassed shares in Meralco, fueling speculations that the two were in battle for control of the country's largest power distributor.
In October 2008, San Miguel bought a 27 percent direct stake in Meralco and claimed that the company and its allies now hold about 43 percent.
PLDT, on the other hand, aligned itself with the Lopez Group and bought the latter's 20 percent Meralco stake, bringing its holdings to 30 percent. The PLDT-Lopez camp also holds about 43 percent of Meralco. With a report from Liza Reyes, ABS-CBN News
abs-cbnNEWS.com is the online news department of ABS-CBN Interactive Inc., a subsidiary of ABS-CBN Broadcasting Corp., part of the Lopez Group of Companies.
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