THE group of businessman Manuel V. Pangilinan vowed to protect its investment in Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) as they “carefully and seriously” weighing all options available.

The options for Pangilinan’s camp to thwart an attempt to acquire the remaining 13.4 percent of the Lopez family in Meralco by another shareholder include the right of first refusal over the clan’s stake or tag-along rights.

“At the moment, we are studying our options carefully and seriously. We do have certain rights, principally the right to match and right to tag-along. Either we match or tag along. I wish we could do both. We have two shareholders in Meralco and both of them have tag-along rights. So with that let’s wait for developments,” said Pangilinan.

On Thursday, the Lopezes will discuss in a board meeting the proposed offer from the son of retail tycoon Henry Sy, one of the Philippines’ richest men, to bid for a 13.4-percent stake in Meralco, Sy and other investors—through privately held TriRatna Holdings Corp.—are said to be allied with Ramon Ang, president of conglomerate San Miguel Corp.

“As a technical matter, the right of first refusal and tag-along rights get triggered the moment First Philippine Holdings Corp., which holds the family’s interest in Meralco, have made an acceptance of the offer from TriRatna. We have not seen nor or been given a copy,” said Pangilinan.

In fact, Pangilinan said both camps were supposed to approve the purchase of half of the 13.4-percent stake in Meralco when the offer was made public on Friday. “We have said before that the talks will be concluded shortly. In fact, the board was ready to approve it when the offer from TriRatna came,” said Pangilinan.

The Pangilinan-led First Pacific Co. Ltd. and Meralco have already drawn up a number of operational synergies between the country’s largest phone company and the electricity distributor.

It would be out to waste, said Pangilinan, if the planned synergies—a few of which have already begun pilot run—are not realized if his group will not be able to successfully gain controlling ownership in Meralco.

If and when the 6.7-percent Meralco stake falls in the hands of Pangilinan’s camp then the latter would own a total of 41.4 percent which is still not enough to match that of San Miguel Corp. (SMC). The diversifying conglomerate reportedly owns 43 percent of Meralco. But when combined with the Lopez group, Pangilinan and the Lopez family control about 48.1 percent of Meralco while about 9 percent is held by the public.

On the other hand, a sale of the Lopez stake to Sy would give SMC control of 56.4 percent of Meralco, leaving Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. with about 35-percent stake.

Sy is allied with SMC. The wealthy family, through holding firm SM Investments Corp., used to own an 11-percent stake in the food and beverage giant, which it sold to San Miguel Retirement Fund for P27 billion in October 2007.  TriRatna incorporators, based on 2006 general information sheet, include the younger Sy, SMC president Ramon Ang, Joselito Campos Jr., Daniel Ibasco, Anthony Almeda, Joseph Ferdinand Dichavez.