Power and infrastructure conglomerate First Philippine Holdings Corp. is still interested in acquiring the government’s stake in Manila Electric Co., chairman Oscar Lopez said.

The company, owned by the Lopez family which also has stakes in broadcasting and property, would like to raise its holding in the country’s biggest power distributor from an expanded 33.4 percent stake after it bought more shares last year.

Lopez said the company would bid for any stake in Meralco the government plans to sell this year and plans to get a foreign partner for the bid.

"But it depends on how it is bidded out, whether 10 percent or 29 percent," Lopez said. "What we would like is to get a foreign partner to bid for a substantial stake, somebody who can help us manage Meralco."

The government wants to sell its remaining interest of about 10 percent in Meralco, but it has not yet decided whether to team up with state agencies holding Meralco shares to sell a total 29 percent stake.

First Holdings last year entered into deals valued at about $434 million to buy two blocks of Meralco shares from the Meralco Pension Fund and Spain’s Union Fenosa. The deals raised its stake to more than 33 percent from nearly 18 percent.

The power generation unit of First Holdings, First Gen Corp., also said on Tuesday it had raised its convertible bond offer to $300 million from an initial $225 million.

Richard Tantoco, First Gen senior vice president, told reporters that the 2013 bond, priced on Monday, met with twice the demand initially offered to investors. At least $260 million has already been subscribed and the company decided to expand the issue to $300 million, he said.

The bond carries a coupon of 2.5 percent, with a conversion price offering a premium of 18 to 27 percent above Monday’s closing share price of 54 pesos ($1.33). JPMorgan was lead manager of debt sale.

First Gen shares lost 3.7 percent to close at P52 on Tuesday. The company won an auction in November to buy a majority

share in geothermal firm PNOC-Energy Development Corp. for $1.35 billion.

Lopez said the group was in talks with a Japanese firm he declined to name which was interested in taking up the 40 percent stake its previous foreign partner in its bid for PNOC-EDC gave up earlier this month.

First Gen would raise $1.1 billion this year from the bond market or by issuing commercial paper for debt refinancing and expansion of its two big power plants — the 1,000 megawatt Santa Rita and the 500 MW San Lorenzo, both combined-cycle natural gas-fired plants located in Batangas province south of Manila,

Tantoco said.

Less than $400 million of First Gen’s debt would be refinanced this year, he said. -Reuters