Nicky Franco

Could this possibly be referring to the following $FGEN deals? 1. Sale of 60% of gas portfolio to Prime Infra? 2. Purchase of minority stake in Prime Infra's pumped hydro power projects?

...d) appraisers issue broad disclaimers and make no effort to verify the numbers/projections given to them by management. We've been asking for changes on this issue for years but there has been no significant action from the $PSE.

It's not so much that companies make low-ball offers but more because the rules allow them to. The required fairness opinion is ineffective because: a) valuation methods are cherry-picked, b) it's management that hires appraisers, c) the scope of the engagement is narrow, and...

No quick fix. Debris clearing still ongoing as of early Feb and waiting for engineering firms' cost estimates. It's a completely new build; fabrication/delivery/installation probably taking until end-2026. Petron Malaysia will likely post a loss this year and be a drag to $PCOR.

Our advice: reject the tender offer for being way too low. Details in tomorrow's #ShortTakes. Sign up here: mytrade.com.ph/create-your-ac…

$PCOR has a smaller refinery in Malaysia, one of the few countries which has not imposed export restrictions. Unfortunately, it has been offline since December because a storm destroyed its jetty. Disclosures were made to Bursa Malaysia but not to the PSE.

"One side has their arguments. The other side has their arguments." First, there is no wrong time to improve corporate governance. Second, what possible valid argument could there be for wanting to have what is tantamount to a permanent seat on the $PSE board?

IMO, the SEC's proposed rules for $PSE directors don't go far enough. I would add that listed firms who own large chunks of the PSE's outstanding shares should be barred from nominating directors. That's plain and simple conflict of interest. business.inquirer.net/581098/term-li…

TLDR: I am a recovering alcoholic with no fund, no credentials, and no lobbyist. I rebuilt myself from nothing. Then I broke into finance with no degree, no pedigree, and no permission. I parsed SEC filings for a $31.5 billion private credit fund called Cliffwater. Not because anyone asked me to. Because nobody else would. The filings are public, but they are buried in footnotes that are not indexed, not searchable, and not structured for analysis. I have been told by fund managers that nobody even attempts this. Billions of dollars in pension capital, and the people who manage money for a living do not bother to read the filings. So I read them. Every loan. Every amendment. Every semi-annual PIK disclosure. 2,330 positions. I hand-researched fifty. I found 189 loans where borrowers are paying interest with more debt instead of cash. I found over 50 loans that are not generating enough cash to service their debt at all — carried at par on the books of a fund that has never reported a losing month in 41 months. The fund's Sharpe ratio is 3.75. Bernie Madoff — who was fabricating returns and could pick any number he wanted — ran a 3.5. He got caught because the numbers were too smooth by Markopolos. The greatest quant fund in history, Renaissance Technologies, runs a five or six. Cliffwater is claiming risk-adjusted returns that would be impossible even if you insider-traded with perfect information every single time, because the volatility of the underlying markets would still prevent it. Nobody asked questions. Bloomberg confirmed 14% redemptions 48 hours after I published. S&P cut the fund's outlook to negative this week. Cash on hand fell 76% in six months. This is not an isolated fund. This is the structure. $9.4 trillion in private equity. $3.5 trillion in private credit. They all pay their own valuation agents. The valuation agents decide what the funds are worth. No valuation agent has ever been fired for saying the number was too high. The marks produce the NAV. The NAV produces the fees. The fees come from pensions. The pensions come from firefighters and teachers and nurses in Oregon and California and Illinois who will never read a private placement memorandum in their lives. Wall Street ran out of rich people. The endowments were full. The sovereign wealth funds were tapped. So they went downstream — to 401(k)s, to retirement accounts, to interval funds sold to people who have no idea what they own. 1. Direct the SEC and FSOC to examine Level 3 fair value practices across interval funds and BDCs. 2. Require that valuation agents be independent of the funds they mark. 3. State publicly that the current self-marking regime creates systemic risk. 4. Mandate position-level mark disclosure for every fund that accepts pension capital. There are two ways this ends. It breaks all at once like 2008 and we fix it. Or it rots slowly like Japan: one fund blows up, six weeks of quiet, another one, and nobody connects it for a decade while a generation of retirees gets destroyed. I am not asking anyone to take my word for it. I am asking them to read the filings. If you know someone in the administration, a regulator, or anyone on a legislative committee, please send this to them. One person learned this from a one-bedroom apartment. Your government can too. The will is what is missing.

Forgot the chart.

Might be wishful thinking for mega IPOs. First, i don't think Mynt will get the valuation it wants ($8.0B) given the recent earnings trajectory. Second, Maya's IPO will be in the US. More likely it will be a listing by way of introduction here.

Many seem to have liked $ALI's full year profit performance. My 2 cents...

$FGEN sold 60% of its ~2,000MW gas portfolio to Razon for P50B then buys 40% of his 2,000MW hydro assets for P75B. So FGEN is net cash out by P25B and total attributable capacity is lower by 400MW. Not a good deal, IMO, esp since Wawa/Ahunan will be completed in 2030 or later.

ChatGPT = typewriter; Claude = word processor. Used this analogy in yesterday’s note on generative/agentic AI’s potential impact on our BPO sector. Largely forgotten after the hype/scare in 2023, it may be nearer than most think. Full report at mytrade.com.ph.

Php36.00 doesn't low-ball minority investors of $ATI but IMO, the bidders clearly have significant room to improve the offer. Wrote this December 17.

Hi, all. I don’t often post these but this girl is close to my wife’s heart. Jam has been battling since she was a toddler (she is now eight). Any help - financial, prayers, sharing her story - will go a long way. Thank you. bit.ly/3ZGuVWk

...to peers. In other words, there is much room for further credit growth. In fact, instead of worrying, we prefer to see the rise in card debt as part of the ongoing boom in consumer spending directed toward discretionary items (e.g. travel, events, gadgets, etc.).

While credit card debt has indeed surged, this is because of: a) rising penetration, b) changing consumer behavior (online retail/food delivery which are easier to use with credit cards), and c) rising incomes. More importantly, the 🇵🇭's household debt to GDP is low relative...

Late post: Many of us probably got the same worrisome economic talking points via group chats as the ones cited in this column. I would argue that things aren't as dire as they seem. I grouped some of the talking points into topics and give my 2 cents. philstar.com/business/2026/…