A word from the Chief

Fellow members of the First Pacific community,

It is fitting that the closing of our 40th anniversary celebrations end with First Pacific receiving its firstever credit ratings – investmentgrade ratings from Standard & Poor’s Global and Moody’s. This testifies to the strength of First Pacific during turbulent credit market conditions, we are gratified to have received such recognition from these two leading global rating agencies.

First Pacific recorded its strongestever earnings in 2021 with turnover and recurring profit rose to a record high, underscoring the quality of the goods and services provided by the businesses we invest in.

In addition, PLDT reached a landmark transaction for the sale and leaseback of nearly 6,000 cell towers for 77 billion, releasing funds for 27.5 billion in debt reduction, 24.5 billion of debt avoidance, and up to 9 billion for special dividend. There are further details in this issue of The View which also records a well-deserved awarding of the ING FINEX CFO of the Year to PLDT CFO Anabelle LimChua. PLDT has won a host of further awards also detailed in this issue.

MPIC is continuing its strong growth as the pullback of pandemic movement restrictions allowed a new surge of toll road traffic supplemented by the official opening of the spectacular icon of Cebu, the Cebu-Cordova Link Expressway, which was carrying as many as 50,000 vehicles by its third day of operations. There are also details about MPIC’s CFO, CRO and CSO Chaye A Cabal-Revilla joined the Accounting for Sustainability Roundtable on sustainability reporting hosted by His Royal Highness The Prince of Wales this March.

Speaking of anniversaries, Indofood’s Bogasari flour unit celebrates its 50th anniversary last November while elsewhere in Indonesia’s biggest and finest food company we see new product innovations even as Indofood spices up the Indonesia Pavilion at the World Expo in Dubai.

And finally, I invite you to peruse the winning selections of our 7th Annual Photo Competition in this issue.

M V P