PLDT in no rush to sell remaining stake in Rocket, says MVP

Telecommunication giant PLDT Inc. signaled that there was no rush to unload its remaining stake in Germany’s Rocket Internet after it sold back to Rocket most of its holdings last month.

PLDT chair and CEO Manuel V. Pangilinan said the company wanted to be “flexible” on its remaining stake, which he said was about 3 percent of the tech firm.

“The share price (of Rocket)  dropped a bit so there is no pressure on the part of PLDT to divest quickly,” Pangilinan said.

“For the meantime, the position is to hold on to those shares of Rocket Internet,” he added.

He said PLDT’s remaining holdings were valued at about P5 billion as of Wednesday.

The query on PLDT’s plans for Rocket came after it sold the bulk of its holdings during the company’s share buyback initiative.

PLDT said it had sold back to Rocket 6.8 million shares valued at 163.2 million euros, or about P10 billion. It sold the shares at 24 euros each, representing a loss of about 27 percent loss from its entry price.

PLDT invested in Rocket Internet in 2014, lured by the firms ambitious goal of rapidly replicating successful startups models and rolling these out in emerging markets.

Among Rocket Internet’s businesses at the time were online retailers such as Lazada and Zalora. But stiff competition forced Rocket to change course. It sold Lazada to China’s Alibaba Group in 2016. Last year, the Ayala Group acquired a 49-percent stake in Zalora Philippines.

The telco had been hinting at a sale of its Rocket stake since late 2017.