Ten percent will be raised through an initial public offering. The balance 30 percent will be sold to foreign investors based in Hong Kong and the United States, with each investor group allowed to buy a maximum of 10 percent.
Proceeds from the sale will go to First Philippine Holdings Corp. (FPHC), a Lopez Group holding company which is expected to use the money raised to settle some its expensive foreign-denominated loans. At 60 percent, FPHC will remain the majority stakeholder of First Generation.
Some time ago, FPHC unsuccessfully tried to sell 40 percent of First Generation. "We abandoned the idea because we did not receive good offers," Garrucho said.
Garrucho expects a more attractive price now for First Generation shares because of projected revenue stream from some of its projects.
First Generation is the mother company of First Gas Power Corp., a joint venture with British Gas. First Gas operates the 1,000 megawatt Sta. Rita plant and the soon-to-be-completed 500MW San Lorenzo plant. The two Batangas-based plants will take up the natural gas to be produced by Shell Phils. Exploration BV’s Malampaya field.
First Gas is currently looking at the possibility of putting up another 500MW plant that will run on Malampaya’s natural gas. Potential consortium partners for this project are the Philippine National Oil Co. and Texaco of the US.
First Generation is also the mother company of First Private Power Corp., which operates the 225 MW Bauang diesel-fired plant and the 72 MW diesel-fired Panay plant.