Morgan Stanley buys 6.5% of Metro Pacific

MANILA, Philippines—American investment banking giant Morgan Stanley has built up a 6.5-percent stake in infrastructure holding firm Metro Pacific Investments Corp., thus acquiring an interest in local toll roads, water, power generation and hospital businesses.

MPIC reported to the Philippine Stock Exchange on Monday a notification from Morgan Stanley Investment Management Co. that the investment bank had now acquired about 1.44-billion common shares in the infrastructure company.

Based on MPIC’s closing price of P3.55 per share at the local stock market, Morgan Stanley’s investment in the company was worth about P5.11 billion.

Any group acquiring a “substantial” stake—defined by corporate regulators as an interest breaching 5 percent—is required to disclose such investment in any publicly listed company.

The disclosure showed that Morgan Stanley had been buying shares of MPIC from the open market since May this year. It also indicated that Morgan Stanley had participated in MPIC’s recent P8.64 billion equity deal.

Since May, Morgan Stanley had bought shares from the open market at various price points ranging between a low of P3.36 and a high of P3.81 per share. It also acquired 6.42 million shares for P3.60 per share during a recent MPIC sale of shares via a “top-up” private placement.

MPIC recently sold 2.4 billion shares at P3.60 each to investors in Asia, Europe and the United States in a stock placement managed by CLSA Ltd. and JP Morgan Securities Ltd.

MPIC is beefing up its capital stock to scale up its interest in infrastructure in the Philippines, particularly the toll road businesses in the Philippines. It had submitted an unsolicited bid to the government for a project connecting the two main expressways linking the capital to northern and southern provinces.

The company, which has a market capitalization of P79.6 billion at the local stock market, is also looking to get state contracts for the development of road and rail networks and airports across the country which the government wants to pursue under a public-private partnership scheme.