New partner gets 3 EDC board seats

Three board seats have been given to Philippine Renewable Energy Holdings Corporation (PREHC), the new partner for Energy Development Corporation (EDC) in a $1.3-billion transaction that was sealed this week.

The newly designated EDC board directors, as disclosed to the Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE) had been: David Luboff, David Baldwin and Christopher Low, nominees of Macquarie Infrastructure and Real Assets (MIRA) and Arran Investment Pte Ltd. of the GIC Group.

The two investment funds constituted PREHC that emerged as the winning bidder in the EDC shares’ tender offer. That eventually resulted in the Lopez firm’s divestment of 31.7 percent of its common shares.

To pave the way for the entry of the new board members, Oscar M. Lopez, Peter D. Garrucho Jr. and Victor Emmanuel B. Santos Jr., had tendered their respective resignations.

Two of the newly named directors had also been given pivotal roles in EDC’s board committees, with Luboff taking on the audit and governance as well as nomination, compensation and third party transactions committees.

Baldwin, for his part, had been named into the operations committee, and also with the risk management and corporate social responsibility (CSR) committees.

Another component of EDC’s management that had been shuffled is on the designation of lawyer Bernadette Ann V. Policarpio as Corporate Secretary; and Ana Maria A. Katigbak as Assistant Corporate Secretary.

The new partnership of PREHC and EDC had indicated to the media that they would chart the next growth trajectory of the company, including those on expansion plans.

Prior to PREHC’s entry, EDC had cast several projects that it has been intending to pursue – primarily in the renewable energy (RE) development space.

There had been no new specific projects indicated by this new partnership yet, but it is anticipated that most of the planned investment expansions may still be part of their longterm growth aspirations.