BIZ BUZZ: Next on Lucio Co’s shopping cart: LRT 1
The name of retail tycoon Lucio Co had long popped up as a possible white knight for the Villars’ PrimeWater, but some people thought he wasn’t a serious contender. Not with the likes of Enrique Razon Jr., Manuel V. Pangilinan and Ramon Ang—who had gone into the infrastructure business much ahead—likewise interested in this utility firm.
But it’s also precisely because of this limited exposure to infrastructure that makes the retail magnate a good candidate to pick up unwanted assets with long gestation period. It allows him to diversify. At the same time, it’s easier for him to jump through the hoops of the Philippine Competition Commission.
Having said that, we hear that the man behind Puregold Price Club, Cosco Capital Inc., The Keepers Holdings Inc. and Philippine Bank of Communications isn’t stopping at PrimeWater. Now that he has dipped his hands into the infrastructure space, he’s on the prowl for more assets.
His name has again emerged as a possible candidate to take over another asset, albeit one that others won’t touch with a 10-foot pole.
We’re talking about Light Railway Transit 1 (LRT 1), the first elevated railway in the country.
Within the LRT 1 consortium, Pangilinan-led Metro Pacific Investments Corp. had long been the lone party insisting to keep the asset.It’s “para sa bayan” (for the country), Pangilinan used to say.This was even as others in the consortium—Ayala Corp., Sumitomo Corp. and Macquarie—had long wanted to take a haircut.Technically, they could have declared the government in default of its obligations, which have now reached billions of pesos, but were still hoping for a miracle.
But now that even Pangilinan seems to have changed his tune, having told the media they were now considering to sell the railway concession, the next question is, who will take over the asset?
The white knight of PrimeWater could be waiting for a ride just around the corner.
