The ceasefire lasted 26 days.
On June 9, the Lopez family majority — the three branches holding 71% of Lopez Inc., the family’s private holding company that sits at the top of the Lopez group — issued a press release calling Federico “Piki” Lopez’s signature hydropower deal “horrible”, and demanded that regulators compel full disclosure of where the money went. They alleged that Piki agreed to pay Prime Infrastructure P50 billion as a “transaction premium”, meaning, an entry fee for the right to join Prime Infra’s hydropower business, and that only P25 billion of the original P75 billion was “construction equity”, or genuine money for actually building the dams. “In effect, Piki funded the whole project that is yet to be built, has no cash flow for years, and faces multiple completion risks,” the majority said. “This is a horrible deal for First Gen.”
They also asked a question no public document has answered: “Did Prime [Infrastructure of tycoon Enrique Razon] pay a premium for getting full control of the hydropower company? If so, how much and who got it?”
The majority’s latest public statement landed 26 days after they had announced a ceasefire. On May 14, they had withdrawn the Feburary board resolution that fired Piki as president and CEO of Lopez Inc. They called it an opening for discussions and that they were “open to a ceasefire” subject to fair compromise and access to information. A day later, Piki welcomed the gesture as “a possible first step for all parties to finally resolve the issues dividing the family.” At the May 28 First Gen annual stockholders’ meeting, Piki mentioned it in three careful sentences, called it a “peace overture,” and moved on to discuss energy projects.
