MANILA, Philippines -- Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. chair Manuel V. Pangilinan recently bought more shares of PLDT from the open market, building up his personal stake in the local telecommunication to a block now worth about P540 million.
Pangilinan's purchases of 2,000 new PLDT shares worth about P4.6 million coincided with the buyback likewise being pursued by PLDT itself, which analysts believed to be a way of protecting the share price of the telecommunication giant given jitters caused by the recent allegations made by Senator Panfilo Lacson.
(Lacson alleged in a privilege speech that Alfonso Yuchengco was coerced in 1999 by then President Joseph Estrada to sell his shares in the PLDT to the group of Pangilinan. The camps of Estrada and Pangilinan have denied the allegations.)
In a disclosure to the Philippine Stock Exchange on Thursday, PLDT said its chairman, Pangilinan bought on September 23 some 2,000 PLDT shares, half of which was bought at P2,410 and the other half at P2,415.
The disclosure also stated that Pangilinan has become the beneficial owner of about 225,450 PLDT shares, some of which were certificated in his name while others were lodged with brokers.
PLDT's share price marginally fell on Thursday to close at P2,395 per share.
Pangilinan's purchases accounted for 1.2 percent of total PLDT trades at the Philippine Stock Exchange that day.
PLDT itself also bought more of its own shares from the stock market the day before. On Sept. 22, PLDT acquired 5,170 more shares, bringing the total number of treasury shares to about 2.68 million, which were worth P6.4 billion as of Thursday's market price.
Analysts said the buying by PLDT and Pangilinan himself was still part of the defensive move following the overhang caused by allegations that Estrada coerced the Yuchengcos into selling their PLDT stake to First Pacific Co. Ltd. of Hong Kong Pangilinan years ago.
Profitable companies resort to shares buyback programs when they think their stock prices are undervalued by the market. In the case of PLDT, it has an existing authority from its board to implement a stock buyback program.
PLDT had a market capitalization of about P449 billion as of Thursday’s close, the most valuable among companies listed on the PSE.
