For the first time since the Lopez cousins’ war broke into the open in March, Federico “Piki” Lopez made his first public appearance. At First Gen Corporation’s virtual annual stockholders’ meeting (ASM) on Thursday, May 28, of course, the question would come: “What is happening to the family?”
The First Gen chairman gave investors three sentences. The Lopez Inc. board, Piki said, has withdrawn the resolution removing him as president. He described the move as “a possible first step” for all parties to resolve their issues, a “peace overture” of sorts. And he added that he remains “fully prepared for any outcome,” while continuing to fulfill his fiduciary duties to all shareholders of the Lopez group. Then he moved on.
For a feud that has produced press releases about “poison pills” and a 71% majority ousting him “for cause,” the effect of those three sentences is disproportionate. They mark the first time the patriarch of the energy arm has formally acknowledged, in a recorded stockholders’ meeting, that the majority cousins have pulled back the very instrument they used to try to remove him. They also show how far the war has shifted since Rappler first described it as a “ceasefire on paper, war in the courts” earlier in May: the ceasefire now has paperwork behind it, but the war has not ended.
