Synergy Grid [SGP 13.12, down 0.3%; 62% avgVol] [link], the holding company for National Grid Corp. of the Philippines (NGCP), responded to the Bilyonaryo article I covered yesterday to say that SGP “has no information or knowledge on [the matter]”, and that NGCP “has not received any formal correspondence from the Maharlika Wealth Fund regarding any investment into NGCP.” The Bilyonaryo article referenced insiders who claimed that the Maharlika Wealth Fund was seeking up to four board seats on NGCP, and that NGCP owners Big Boy Sy and Robert Coyiuto were not willing to sell more than 20% of NGCP to the fund.
MB bottom-line: There are several angles here. The first is that news from unnamed sources will always be “loose”; without knowing who the source is, it’s impossible to tell how fresh their knowledge might be. What might have been true to the source at the time the source gained the knowledge might not be an accurate representation of the deal now, especially if the source is the mythical law office photocopy clerk. With that in mind, though, Bilyo has come out on top seemingly more often than not in disputes with companies over the accuracy of its information from unnamed sources. The second angle here is one of semantics. It’s interesting that SGP would say that it has “no information or knowledge” of what the source was talking about in the Bilyo article, but that’s not what SGP said about NGCP’s management team. For NGCP’s team, all SGP would say is that NGCP hasn’t received any “formal correspondence” from Maharlika Wealth Fund. Maybe it’s just my rusty legal skills, but it feels like SGP’s statement doesn’t mean that Bilyo’s sources are wrong. There’s a world where Maharlika reps spoke directly with NGCP representatives over the phone (informal correspondence) or in person (informal correspondence) about the terms discussed in the Bilyo article, and it’s even possible that the parties met and had substantial negotiations about those terms, but that Maharlika had simply not yet sent a signed written letter (on letterhead) to NGCP to formalize the correspondence. In that world, SGP’s statements would still be accurate (though misleading in a practical sense) and Bilyo’s sources would still be accurate. The third angle is that SGP’s statement says that it has received no formal correspondence from the Maharlika Wealth Fund, but there is no formal entity called the “Maharlika Wealth Fund”. There’s the Maharlika Investment Fund, which is the actual pool of money that can be invested, and then there’s the Maharlika Investment Corporation, which is the government-owned and government-controlled state body that is responsible for managing the Maharlika Investment Fund. Is this sloppy/lazy drafting from SGP, or is this clever pseudo-sloppy drafting from SGP?
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