PLDT won’t sell new shares to any group

Telecommunications giant Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. (PLDT) is not issuing nor selling new company shares to any group.

PLDT corporate secretary Lourdes Rausa-Chan, in a disclosure to the Philippine Stock Exchange, said PLDT has no plan to sell or issue new PLDT common shares to any other investor.

PLDT vice-president and spokesperson Menardo Jimenez Jr. said. "The PLDT management or Manuel Pangilinan as president and chief executive officer of the company is not sponsoring, endorsing, or even remotely contemplating the issuance of new PLDT shares to anyone."

Contrary to reports (not The STAR) that PLDT is selling a 15-percent stake to a US-based investment firm through the issuance of new shares, PLDT officials explained that the company does not have sufficient number of common shares left in its authorized capital structure which can be issued to a new investor at the level of 15 percent as rumored.

They added that issuing new shares would require an increase in the authorized capital stock of PLDT which would need the approval of more than two-thirds of the common and preferred shareholders of the total issued and outstanding capital stock of PLDT.

"To make this happen, the PLDT board would have to call a shareholders‚ meeting to approve the request," they said.

In another development, PLDT yesterday announced that it has filed a notice of dismissal of a complaint filed with the US Southern District Court of New York against First Pacific Co. Ltd. and certain of its affiliates.

PLDT last July filed a complaint to compel First Pacific to file an amended Section 13d attaching a copy of the memorandum of agreement between First Pacific and the Gokongwei group concerning the transfer of First Pacific’s interests in PLDT to the Gokongweis.

In its complaint, the company said the withholding of the MOA was in violation of Section 13d of the US Securities Exchange Act and deprived PLDT’s shareholders of important and legally required information upon which they could assess the potential change in control transaction, the parties who seek to control the company, how the control will be exercised, and other material terms of the MOA.

However, last Oct. 2, First Pacific announced that the Gokongwei group has terminated the MOA and that the former has accepted the termination.

"Since the transactions contemplated by the MOA will not proceed which makes the issues raised in our complaint moot and academic, the company filed a notice of dismissal of the complaint, without prejudice," Rausa-Chan said.