Tycoon Manuel V. Pangilinan, chairman of Manila Electric Co., is buying more shares in the Philippines’ biggest power distributor from a San Miguel Corp. subsidiary for P2.19 billion. San Miguel disclosed on Wednesday that San Miguel Global Power Holdings Corp. had signed an agreement to sell the shares to him.
The transaction covers 3.77 million Meralco common shares at P580.99 apiece, equal to about 0.33 per cent of Meralco’s issued and outstanding common stock. It will be completed as a special block sale crossed on the Philippine Stock Exchange. The price is far above the P90 per share that San Miguel Global Power accepted in a 2025 transaction, according to the Philippine Daily Inquirer.
Pangilinan’s personal purchase is part of a wider sell-down. Last week the San Miguel power unit’s board approved selling up to 46.596 million Meralco shares. On Friday it agreed to sell 21.4 million of them, about 1.9 per cent of Meralco, to Metro Pacific Investments Corp. at the same P580.99 price. Once that deal closes, Metro Pacific’s direct and indirect stake in Meralco will rise to 49.4 per cent from 47.5 per cent, tightening control of the utility by the group Pangilinan leads.
San Miguel Global Power said on Wednesday that proceeds from selling its minority Meralco holding would go towards expanding its renewable energy business. Toby Allan Arce, head of sales trading at Globalinks Securities and Stocks Inc., described the sale as a “sensible capital-allocation move” for the Ramon Ang-led conglomerate. He said selling a passive stake makes sense if the cash goes into projects San Miguel controls more closely or into strengthening its balance sheet.
Arce also pointed to the cost of the decision.
Meralco is a high-quality infrastructure asset with fairly defensive cash flows, he said, so San Miguel is giving up part of its share of future earnings and any rise in the share price. For Pangilinan and Metro Pacific, the transactions move the group closer to an outright majority in Meralco at a price set well above San Miguel’s earlier exit. The San Miguel unit’s board has cleared the sale of up to 46.596 million shares, so the two deals disclosed so far account for about 25.2 million of them, leaving room for further block sales. Neither side has said who might buy the remaining shares.
