NG accepts First Pacific offer for PLDT stake

The government has accepted Hong Kong-based First Pacific Co.’s offer to initially acquire only half of the 12 million shares in the Philippine Telecommunications Investment Corp. (PTIC) up for sale.

The STAR learned that Japan’s NTT DocoMo, which was supposed to put up half of the P25.2-billion price tag (around P2,100 per share) for the 46 percent stake in PTIC, translating to a 6.4 percent indirect stake in the Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. (PLDT), backed out due to "pricing issues."

Thus, the government will be receiving initially only around P13 billion for the partial sale of the PTIC stake. It was learned that the deadline for First Pacific to acquire the remainder is Feb. 1.

A highly placed source revealed that First Pacific still has the option to acquire the remaining six million shares from the government, which the Hong Kong-based company can in turn sell to other parties, including the NTT group.

"We are still looking for the chance to purchase the last portion," an NTT group official told The STAR.

The NTT official said they can buy from First Pacific the remaining six million shares, if the latter decides to acquire them. "But we need to discuss how much is the appropriate price," the official emphasized.

The Department of Finance and the Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG), joint disposition entities for the PTIC shares, were scheduled to sign yesterday the deed of sale covering the six million PTIC shares with the First Pacific Group led by managing director Manuel V. Pangilinan.

The highest bid for these shares was P25.2 billion for the 12 million shares posted by Singaporean hedge fund Parallax Venture Fund XXVII. First Pacific will merely match the bid.

Two bids were received by the government pursuant to the auction process, the highest of which is equivalent to approximately P2,100 ($42.52) per share of PLDT held by PTIC. First Pacific in a statement said this compares to the closing price of a PLDT share on the Philippine Stock Exchange of P2,440 ($49.40) on Dec. 15, 2006.

The 46-percent stake in PTIC was held by Prime Holdings Inc. (PHI), a company owned by the family of businessman Antonio "Tonyboy" Cojuangco, until the Supreme Court ordered the reconveyance in favor of the Philippine government of said shares for being ill-gotten.

Earlier, the two largest shareholders of PLDT – First Pacific and NTT – announced that they are jointly acquiring the 6.4 percent stake (or 3.2 percent each) in PLDT valued at an estimated P25 billion. This would raise their combined shareholdings to 44 percent.

Pangilinan said that as part of one consortium in PLDT, First Pacific decided to invite NTT to participate in the opportunity to acquire additional shares in PLDT.

Earlier, the First Pacific top official said it makes sense for them to acquire the remaining stake in PTIC in order to consolidate First Pacific’s ownership in PTIC. First Pacific, through two subsidiaries, currently owns 54 percent of PTIC while government owns the remaining 46 percent.

With the acquisition by First Pacific of an initial six million shares in PTIC representing approximately 3.2 percent of PLDT’s issued share capital, the Hong Kong-based conglomerate will now have an attributable economic interest of approximately 27.5 percent of PLDT’s issued common share capital.

NTT DoCoMo currently owns a 6.7 percent stake in PLDT while its sister company, NTT Communications, owns another 6.7 percent. The NTT Group is limited by an agreement with First Pacific not to own more than 20 percent of PLDT