First Holdings to sell only 10% of FirstGen

First Philippine Holdings Inc. (FPHI) has decided to sell only 10 percent of the shares of its subsidiary First Generation Holdings Corp. (FirstGen) instead of 40 percent as previously planned.

FPHI officials said that they had received offers from several financial investors to acquire a 10-percent equity in FirstGen.

The remaining 30 percent originally planned for sale would be held "for the moment" to allow the company more options for its disposal.

"We want to have the flexibility of either selling it to financial investors or include it to the plan of publicly listing FirstGen in the stock market," said FPHI vice president Francis Giles B. Puno.

The company prefers to entertain financial investors over strategic partners in the case of FirstGen as they require funding rather than technical expertise. FirstGen is already involved in power generation with each project allied with reputable foreign strategic partners like Siemens Inc. of Germany.

Puno said an alliance with financial institutions rather than strategic partners allows for greater flexibility in the company's expansion projects in the energy sector aside from power generation.

One expansion area will involve the privatization of the National Power Corp. (Napocor).

FirstGen officials said they will establish a subsidiary that will directly be involved in the acquisition of Napocor assets when the privatization process starts.

It is in this area that FirstGen is open to strategic partners aside from financial investors.

"We are also looking at inviting several strategic partners and financial investors to participate with us in the new company for the acquisition of Napocor assets including its generation companies (gencos)," Puno said.

Napocor has eight gencos throughout the country, and FirstGen is interested primarily in those located in Luzon and secondarily with those located in the Visayas and Mindanao regions.