MANILA ELECTRIC Co.’s share price has clawed back to near record highs lately reportedly due to a play on two minority but still crucial blocks in the hotly contested power utility—the Lopezes’ remaining 6.6-percent stake and the state-owned Land Bank’s still-in-quarantine interest of around 3.8 percent.
On the Lopez stake, there are talks that San Miguel Corp. is making a last-ditch effort to capture this block. But according to the San Miguel grapevine, the tug-of-war angle is a tale as old as time. Why waste time and effort on a stake where the frenemy has the right of first refusal on?
What many believe to be more plausible, though, is that the Lopezes are in the thick of discussions with the First Pacific group led by Manuel V. Pangilinan on the disposal of their remaining stake in Meralco.
Pundits believe that the clan, who has gone through so much emotional pain in this Meralco selldown (but has been greatly rewarded for it) is not about to settle for the same price that they last extracted from MVP’s group the last time around.
And why will MVP even be coaxed into paying an even heftier premium when the tug-of-war is over?
Pundits’ theory 1: To preempt any more moves by the frenemy, hence the (said to be fictitious) San Miguel angle.
Theory 2: The remaining stake may be bundled with other assets that may be useful to MVP’s group, like niche telco player Bayantel perhaps?
On the Landbank issue, remember that the state-owned bank was unable to join fellow government financial institutions Social Security System and Development Bank of the Philippines in selling to San Miguel ally, Global 5000 Investments Inc., its Meralco stake in early 2009. This was because Meralco cancelled Landbank’s shares on the eve of the block sale execution in December 2008 on the basis of an agrarian reform regional adjudicator order. Only DBP and SSS were thus able to cash out of Meralco at that time.
While Landbank was then furious at Meralco for scuttling the deal, that encumbrance has turned to be a blessing in disguise. Rational thinking would naturally tempt Landbank to now look for a way out of the old deal that had bound it to sell its Meralco shares for P90 a share (payable in installment through January 2012) especially when the share price is nearing the old peak of P300 (it hit a 52-week high of P299.60 in last Thursday’s intraday trading).
Landbank obviously can’t do anything for now as its shares are under quarantine but we’ve confirmed that its lawyers recently wrote to the Office of the Government Corporate Counsel seeking advice on how to treat the old GFI deal on Meralco. If Landbank could probably have its way, off to the highest bidder the block goes.—Doris C. Dumlao
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What many believe to be more plausible, though, is that the Lopezes are in the thick of discussions with the First Pacific group led by Manuel V. Pangilinan on the disposal of their remaining stake in Meralco.
Pundits believe that the clan, who has gone through so much emotional pain in this Meralco selldown (but has been greatly rewarded for it) is not about to settle for the same price that they last extracted from MVP’s group the last time around.
And why will MVP even be coaxed into paying an even heftier premium when the tug-of-war is over?
Pundits’ theory 1: To preempt any more moves by the frenemy, hence the (said to be fictitious) San Miguel angle.
Theory 2: The remaining stake may be bundled with other assets that may be useful to MVP’s group, like niche telco player Bayantel perhaps?
On the Landbank issue, remember that the state-owned bank was unable to join fellow government financial institutions Social Security System and Development Bank of the Philippines in selling to San Miguel ally, Global 5000 Investments Inc., its Meralco stake in early 2009. This was because Meralco cancelled Landbank’s shares on the eve of the block sale execution in December 2008 on the basis of an agrarian reform regional adjudicator order. Only DBP and SSS were thus able to cash out of Meralco at that time.
While Landbank was then furious at Meralco for scuttling the deal, that encumbrance has turned to be a blessing in disguise. Rational thinking would naturally tempt Landbank to now look for a way out of the old deal that had bound it to sell its Meralco shares for P90 a share (payable in installment through January 2012) especially when the share price is nearing the old peak of P300 (it hit a 52-week high of P299.60 in last Thursday’s intraday trading).
Landbank obviously can’t do anything for now as its shares are under quarantine but we’ve confirmed that its lawyers recently wrote to the Office of the Government Corporate Counsel seeking advice on how to treat the old GFI deal on Meralco. If Landbank could probably have its way, off to the highest bidder the block goes.—Doris C. Dumlao
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