Posted on May 25, 2012 07:42:48 PM [
BusinessWorld Online ]
BUSINESSMAN MANUEL V. Pangilinan’s
camp will be selling its stake in Rockwell Land Corp. to the Lopezes to allow
it to focus on power investments, which could include a future factory for
electric vehicles.
“We are selling it to the Lopezes,”
Mr. Pangilinan told reporters on Friday after a stockholders meeting, referring
to a 23.1% stake in the property developer, which is largely held by the
Lopez-led First Philippine Holdings Corp.
“We will disclose the [price after the
transaction] is finished,” he added.
The Pangilinan group controls 23.1% in
the property developer, through Beacon Electric Asset Holdings, Inc., the
controlling shareholder of Meralco.
This, as Mr. Pangilinan said that his
group might set up a unit intended for its investments in e-vehicles.
“First Pacific Co. Ltd. will have to
establish separate vehicle for the e-vehicle investments,” he said, clarifying
that the locally based Metro Pacific Investments Corp. (MPIC) will not be the
investment vehicle.
“If we [Filipino] people don’t look at
it as an opportunity, it would be a pity for us, because we will give a lot of
livelihood to China, Korea and Taiwan, which were heavily represented in the
summit [on Thursday],” he said during the stockholders’ meeting, referring to
the Electric Vehicle Summit.
Mr. Panglinan said that his group
“should seriously consider if they have the capability to manufacture” the
country’s jeepneys and tricycles.
Mr. Pangilinan went on to note that
MPIC’s connector road project, the North Luzon Expressway (NLEx) to the South
Luzon Expressway (SLEx), could be “completed by December of 2015” if government
greenlights it within this year.
Christopher Daniel C. Lizo, Metro
Pacific Tollways Corp.’s chief finance officer, said that the company would
conduct fund raising activities in 2013 to finance the connector road project.
“We will have a fund raising next
year, but we don’t now yet how much it would be,” he told reporters on Friday.
He said that the company’s budget for
the right of way acquisition is P7 billion, which is excluded in the
P23-billion budget for the connector road.
Shares of MPIC fell by 0.50% to P4
apiece while Meralco dropped by 0.52% to P227.80 apiece when the stock market
closed on Friday.
First Pacific partly owns Philippine
Long Distance Telephone Co. (PLDT). Mediaquest Holdings, Inc., a subsidiary of
the Beneficial Trust Fund of PLDT, has a minority stake in BusinessWorld. –
CHCV
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