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PLDT takes 30 pct in Meralco
AFP - Saturday, March 14
MANILA (AFP) - - The Philippines' main telecom firm PLDT on Friday said it would take a 30 percent stake in top power company Meralco as it moved to fight off a rumoured hostile takeover bid by beer giant San Miguel.
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The announcement puts three of the country's biggest corporations in one boardroom, with San Miguel already holding a 34 percent stake in Meralco, whose full name is Manila Electric Co.
"It will be an exciting boardroom war," research chief Astro del Castillo of First Grade Holdings told Dow Jones Newswires. "It will also be another exciting annual meeting."
Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. (PLDT) said it would buy 20 percent stake in Meralco for 20.07 billion pesos (414 million dollars) in cash.
Its main shareholder, Metro Pacific Investments Corp., also said it was in talks to acquire a 10.17 percent Meralco stake acquired recently by a pension fund owned by PLDT employees.
PLDT said in a disclosure that it "does not expect to invest further in Meralco beyond this 20 percent stake," and that it plans to vote in coordination with the Lopez family, which controls the power firm.
The two transactions would give PLDT-Lopez a combined stake of about 44 percent, with San Miguel at 34 percent, before the annual stockholders meeting on May 29. Both sides also hold four seats on the 11-member Meralco board.
The Lopez family's First Philippine Holdings Corp. told the Philippine Stock Exchange it would vote jointly with PLDT to "enable PLDT to actively support in the management of Meralco."
"It raises the question how these powerful business groups could coexist in one boardroom," an analyst with a local brokerage house told Dow Jones, suggesting either San Miguel or PLDT would eventually walk away.
Meralco's stock price has surged this year amid speculation of a hostile bid by San Miguel, which the food and beverages company has denied.
San Miguel bought a 27 percent stake in Meralco last year, and later acquired another seven percent, as part of a long-term plan to shift into heavy industries.
Meralco retails electricity to about 25 percent of the Philippines' population of 90 million, including Manila and surrounding provinces that together account for more than half the country's economic output.
PLDT said Meralco could offer "prepaid electricity as well as wireless bill payments and metre readings" using its telecoms expertise. PLDT would also explore offering broadband Internet services using Meralco's power lines, it added.
Meralco had 2008 revenues of 191 billion pesos and a net profit of 3.1 billion pesos. It has a total asset base of 178 billion pesos and total debt of 21 billion pesos.
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