First Pacific keeping PLDT stake

Hong Kong’s First Pacific Group has no plans of exiting or paring down its stake in industry giant PLDT Inc. even after a tough 2016 and instead signalled it was gearing for the next telco battleground: High-speed fixed-line internet for homes and businesses.

Manuel V. Pangilinan, CEO of First Pacific and PLDT, where he also serves as chair, said in an interview Friday there would be no “cut and run” in their ownership in PLDT, also owned by Japan’s NTT Group and Gokongwei-led JG Summit Holdings Inc.

“I think it’s still a great company,” Pangilinan said. “At the end of the day, most of these problems are man-made.”

The digital shift refers to consumers rapidly moving to internet applications like instant messaging and social media as a means to communicate. It is a hard transition for PLDT, which has a big share of legacy services such as traditional texting and international calls.

PLDT’s market value at P301.4 billion is down about a third so far this year while Fitch Ratings last month downgraded its 2017 domestic telco outlook to “negative,” citing intensifying competition between PLDT and main rival Globe Telecom.

Outside of telecommunications, Pangilinan now oversees a vast business empire in the Philippines, with assets spanning the country’s biggest power retailer, toll road network, gold miner and private hospital chain.

But it was in PLDT where Pangilinan first made his mark in the country, following the entry of First Pacific in 1998, in the wake of the Asian financial crisis.

“Even from a personal standpoint, frankly, there is personal pride in me that, you know, we fell into a hole. Now let’s get out of it,” Pangilinan.

Pangilinan sits at the helm of a telco giant that remains massively profitable, albeit to a smaller extent than in recent years. Core income for the full-year 2016 was projected at P28 billion.