BIZ BUZZ: Pangilinan eyes Prime Water
An executive of Maynilad Water Services, Inc. may have shut down news on the company’s potential takeover of Prime Water Infrastructure, but its big boss said otherwise.
Tycoon Manuel Pangilinan, Metro Pacific Investments Corp. (MPIC) and Maynilad chair, said the company has begun looking at the merits of buying the water business of the Villar group.
In a media briefing here in Hong Kong, the billionaire said both firms had inked a nondisclosure deal to check PrimeWater’s financials.
“Well, they’ve provided us with access. They’ve opened up the data room to us maybe two or three weeks ago,” he told reporters.
For now, Maynilad awaits the initial feedback on the analysis of the numbers.
“It’ll probably take us another week to be able to frame an offer to them. So nothing is finalized. We’re at the beginning of the process. And it’s difficult to predict where we will eventually land,” Pangilinan said.
The tycoon said PrimeWater has more or less 70 to 80 properties nationwide.
“And so we don’t know the approach yet, whether we will bid for only certain of the properties that are large enough to give us profitability, or whether they will insist that we acquire the entire thing,” he said.
Pangilinan said that if getting PrimeWater proves “commercially feasible,” the group would “take a look at it more seriously.”
Once the acquisition talks materialize, PrimeWater’s operations would be under the umbrella of the newly listed Maynilad, he noted.
PrimeWater services over 1.7 million households in parts of Bulacan, Batangas, Laguna, Camarines Norte, Cabanatuan City and Sorsogon City.
Maynilad, on the other hand, covers 17 cities and municipalities in Metro Manila and Cavite.
