Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) and Metro Pacific Investments Corp. (MPIC) raised their stakes in a digital company owned by the MVP Group of Manuel Pangilinan.
PLDT Inc. said in a disclosure to the Philippine Stock Exchange Tuesday Meralco and MPIC each entered into separate subscription agreements with DigiCo for the subscription of 570 million additional common shares in DigiCo.
As a result of these additional subscriptions, DigiCo is now 45 percent-owned by PLDT, down from 60 percent, 27.5 percent-owned by Meralco from 20 percent, and 27.5 percent-owned by MPIC from 20 percent.
DigiCo earlier acquired 56,105 common shares of Bayad from Corporate Information Solutions Inc. for P320 million. CIS is a company controlled by Meralco.
DigiCo’s acquisition of Bayad will enable DigiCo to leverage its expertise and resources to support Bayad’s growth trajectory while exploring and unlocking synergies in the companies led by Pangilinan such as PLDT Inc., Meralco and MPIC.
The acquisition makes available an additional payment gateway for the use of DigiCo, a subsidiary of PLDT.
DigiCo also executed an agreement to acquire 100 percent of Multipay, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Multisys Technologies Corp., whose strong relationship with various billers and digital payment channels is expected to complement and add value to an integrated payment platform’s capabilities.