Romero family exits airline business

MANILA, Philippines — The group of Rep. Michael Romero has exited the airline industry to focus on the family’s power and ports businesses.

F&S Holdings, which is owned by Romero and his wife Sheila, has sold its shares in AirAsia Philippines to AA Com Travel Philippines Inc. for an undisclosed amount.

With the sale, AirAsia Philippines is now the sole local owner and majority shareholder of the country’s third-largest airline with 60 percent stake.

The remaining 40 percent are owned by Capital A Bhd, formerly AirAsia Group, founders Tony Fernandez and Datuk Karmarudin Menarum.

“We wish nothing but the best to our former partner in AirAsia Philippines, as well as to AA Com Travel Philippines. May they continue to fly high and reach new heights,” F&S Holdings chairman Sheila Romero said.

From 15.7 percent shareholdings, the Romero-owned F&S Holdings took majority ownership in AirAsia Philippines back in 2019 when it acquired the combined 28.7 percent shares of former ambassador Alfredo Yao and Maan Hontiveros, and then the 15.6 percent stake of Antonio “Tonyboy” Cojuangco.

“We are excited at the opportunity to consolidate our business enterprises, and realign them to focus more on our core businesses in power and ports,” Sheila said.

“Needless to say, we did not want to undertake this while the pandemic was ongoing, and nearly every business – particularly air travel – was severely hampered. That would not embody the kind of relationship we had with our partners,” she said.

To concentrate on its various interests in the power sector, the Romero group announced that CapitalOne Energy Corp. would now be the holding company to integrate the company’s power generation companies.

These include investments in the renewable energy sector through Alterpower Digos Solar Inc., a 40-megawatt (MW) solar power plant operating in Digos, Davao del Sur, and Fort Pilar Energy, which operates a total of 100-MW battery energy storage.

The group, likewise, includes the Belgrove Power Corp., which owns the 650-MW Malaya thermal power plant, a must run unit of the Department of Energy.

CapitalOne Energy chairman Joseph Omar Castillo said the group is expanding its solar power portfolio with the development of new sites in Cagayan, Nueva Ecija, Batangas, Marinduque and Palawan.

Castillo said these new sites would have a combined capacity of 180 MW peak.

“To CapitalOne Energy Corp., may our future endeavors help power up the economy, and energize more communities in the Philippines,” Sheila said.

“We will continue to invest aggressively on our family’s core businesses in Globalport terminals, which now operates 10 ports in the country, and power businesses,” she said.