Philippine Long Distance Telephone Company

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In February 2007, the Philippine Government sold its shares in the Philippine Telecommunications Investment Company (PTIC), which translated into a 6.4% in the Philippine Long Distance Telephone Company (PLDT), to First Pacific for US$ 546. The sale was based on a January 2006 Supreme Court decision which stated that the shares, registered under the Prime Holdings, Inc., in fact belonged to former President Marcos and were ill-gotten. The transaction was referred to as the third-biggest privatization undertaken by the Philippine government. As of end 2008, First Pacific remained the largest single shareholder in PLDT with a 26.37% interest, which it held through its two subsidiaries, Metro Pacific Resources and PTIC. The Philippine Long Distance Telephone Company, or PLDT, was incorporated under the Corporation Law of the Philippines (Act 1459) on November 28, 1928, following the merger of four telephone companies under common U.S. ownership. By the 1930s, PLDT established an expansive fixed-line network and offered domestic and international radiotelephone services. In 1967, a group of Philippine businessmen, headed by Ramon Cojuangco and closely associated with then President Marcos, formed an investment holding, the Philippine Telecommunications Investment Company (PTIC), to purchase 26% of the PLDT shares from the American stakeholder, the General Telephone and Electronics Corporation. In 1977, 46% of the PLDT shares held by the PTIC were transferred to Prime Holdings formed by Rolando Gapud and Jose Campos Jr. This transaction later became the subject of government sequestration and lengthy litigation on the suspicion that it contributed to Marcos’ “ill-gotten wealth.” In 1981, in furtherance of the then existing government policy to integrate the Philippine telecommunications industry, PLDT purchased substantially all of the assets and liabilities of Republic Telephone Company, becoming the country's telephone monopoly. The company enjoyed the monopolistic position until the passage of the Telecommunications Act that deregulated the Philippine telecommunications industry in 1995. In 1986, after the Power Revolution that ended the regime of President Marcos, the Presidential Commission on Good Government seized Prime Holdings’ equity, involving the 46% of PTIC equity in PLDT. The Prime Holdings shares became the subject of litigation with at least four claimants of PLDT ownership, including the government and the Cojuangco family. In 1999 the Hong Kong-based First Pacific Co., Inc., an investment firm owned by the Salim family of Indonesia, acquired 54% equity of the PTIC, thus paving the way for its control of PLDT. http://www.pldt.com.ph/ Year Investment Capacity 2001 531 5431 2002 548 8444 2003 323 10692 2004 344 21360 2005 299 22522