Jilted suitor gone forever

Word around the trading floor is that a big-name global fund, which flies in with billions and a fancy acronym for a name, just got told “no” by a powerful Filipino family, and Nosy Tarsee hears it might not ask twice.

The setup: a few years back, this foreign investor bought a hefty chunk — a fifth — of a homegrown energy company known for its gas plants and green power ambitions. Two buying sprees, several years apart, at prices that once looked like smart money.

Add it up and the average cost per share lands somewhere in the mid-P20s. Adjust for how much the peso has slid since and insiders whisper the real cost is closer to P32 or P33 a share.

Fast forward to July. The foreign fund floated an offer, P35 a share, hoping to buy its way to full control and take the company off the exchange altogether. The family that runs the show, no strangers to boardroom drama themselves this past year, waved it off. Not enough, they said. Doesn’t reflect what the company is really worth.

On the very eve of that offer, the stock was trading at barely P16, less than half of what the fund is said to have really paid once currency losses were counted in. That’s the kind of gap that makes a shareholder look less like a savvy investor and more like someone holding a very expensive, very illiquid bag.

Finding another big investor willing to inherit the same headache, minority position, family in control, no clean exit isn’t a Tuesday afternoon breeze.

And then there’s the nationality limit, which means that even if the fund wanted to buy its way past its current stake, it might not legally be able to, even with aggressive lawyering.

So will the sweetened offer come? The walls — legal, financial, and familial — are getting harder to climb.