First Pacific’s 40th Anniversary Message

As First Pacific marks its 40th year, we would like to take a moment to look back on our journey so far, and reflect on where we are going.

Our Company’s first investments marked it as a diverse holding company – one which invests in businesses and manages them – a condition First Pacific retains to this day. In our early, youthful years, our investments were broadly divided into (i) banking and finance (First Pacific Holdings) and (ii) trading and distribution (First Pacific International). This reflects the original premise of First Pacific’s character to be an intermediary of finance as well as of goods and services.

In the course of 40 years, our investments have evolved away from our founding principles, driven by changing conditions. Our biggest holdings today are with (i) Indofood which had begun to implement its Total Food Solutions strategy, and is growing to become a multinational food company; (ii) PLDT which is the dominant integrated telecommunications group in the Philippines; and (iii) Metro Pacific Investments, which is one of the largest infrastructure investors in ASEAN.

In the 40 years of First Pacific, we have seen good times and bad, learning and growing through the entire experience of building and evolving what many regard as one of the finest investment management and holding companies in Southeast Asia. We are proud of what we have accomplished, and we look to the future secure in the understanding that our experience – and humility taught by that experience – leave us better prepared in the many years ahead.

In large measure, where First Pacific is today is owed to the men and women who were part of that journey, then and now. To all of them, we send our heartfelt and humble thanks.

Anthoni Salim Chairman

Manuel V Pangilinan Managing Director and CEO

25 May 2021