After Gabby sold to Ramon Ang, Piki Lopez is securing the family’s crown jewels

When Eugenio “Gabby” Lopez III, the former chairman of ABS-CBN Corp. and the grandson of the man who built the family’s broadcast empire, sold his branch’s stake in the clan’s private holding company to diversified conglomerate San Miguel Corporation chairman Ramon S. Ang in August, the story seemed obvious: after months of cousins fighting one another in court and in the business pages, an outsider had finally bought his way into the house the Lopezes built. The reality is that Ang bought into the family’s private penthouse, Lopez Inc., a vehicle that holds prestige and voting shares, but produces no electricity, sells no condominiums, and operates no infrastructure. The actual wealth, the real revenue, and the plants that light a fifth of the country’s homes sit three levels below. On Friday, September 25, Federico “Piki” Lopez, Gabby’s first cousin and the chairman and chief executive of First Philippine Holdings Corporation (FPH) since 2010, emerged from the company’s long-delayed board election with his leadership firmly intact after months of legal and corporate deadlock. FPH is the listed company that holds much of what remains of the family’s operating empire: the power plants, industrial estates, property developments and other businesses. Whatever truce was struck at the top, and whatever Ang believes he bought there, control of the corporate chain leading to the Lopez power business remains with Piki’s side. Part 1 | Debt, discipline, and daring: Inside the Lopez Group’s high-risk bets Part 2 | The Lopezes, presidents, and the cost of dissent Part 3 | Lopez vs Lopez: The secrecy fight behind the Razon power deals The real prize To understand why the 3rd generation cousins spent months in an acrimonious standoff, follow the cash. Over the past two decades, the family surrendered Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) to Manuel V. Pangilinan’s group, weathered the loss of ABS-CBN’s broadcast franchise in 2020, and carried heavy debt at the holding levels. What remained standing, and thriving, was FPH. (READ: Why ABS-CBN is still retrenching 200 employees with P6 billion on the way) FPH is not merely a paper holding firm. It is the group’s cash engine, and 3 businesses account for most of it. Energy Development Corporation (EDC) is the jewel within the jewel. With nearly 1,300 megawatts of geothermal capacity, drawn from volcanic fields in Leyte, Negros, Bicol and Mindanao, EDC has something difficult and expensive to replicate: geothermal fields, power plants, drilling and reservoir expertise built over decades, producing renewable electricity around the clock. Since the Lopez group acquired EDC from the government in 2007, FPH president Giles Puno said more than P200 billion has been invested in the geothermal business. First Gen Corporation is the group’s primary energy platform, built over the past 3 decades from the country’s first natural gas plants into a portfolio of geothermal, hydro, wind and solar. In 2025, First Gen sold 60% of its natural gas business to Enrique Razon’s Prime Infrastructure, freeing capital for its next phase of expansion, including roughly P62 billion into two enormous pumped-storage hydro projects in Rizal and Laguna. These are giant batteries in another form: they use electricity to pump water uphill when power is plentiful, then release it to generate electricity when the grid needs it. Roughly 92% of First Gen’s asset base is now in renewables. Alongside them sit Rockwell Land, the developer of the Makati enclave and the malls and condominium towers that carry its name, and First Philippine Industrial Park (FPIP) in Batangas, which hosts 159 locators employing more than 73,000 people. Rockwell and FPIP add property, industrial land, and recurring income to a group dominated by power. In 2025, FPH posted record consolidated net income of P31.7 billion on revenues of P84.7 billion, although that profit included a one-time gain from First Gen’s sale of control of its natural gas business. Recurring net income attributable to FPH shareholders was P15.1 billion. For a family facing liquidity problems several corporate floors above, FPH was no longer just another asset. It had become the economic center of gravity. This was why the cousins’ argument over control was also an argument over cash. Who controlled the companies would influence how much money stayed inside them for the next power plant, geothermal field or property development; how much could be sent upward as dividends; and how much, eventually, could reach other parts of the family empire, including a cash-starved ABS-CBN. Control determined who got to make those choices. One floor down The September 25 stockholders meeting of First Philippine Holdings was a direct sequel to the September 14 showdown at Lopez Holdings Corporation, formerly Benpres Holdings Corporation. To see how control flows through the group, consider its vertical architecture. At the apex sits Lopez Inc., the private, unlisted vehicle owned by the branches of the Lopez family, where Gabby’s Crème Investment sold its 25.68% stake to Ramon Ang. One floor down is Lopez Holdings Corporation, a publicly listed firm 54.74% owned by Lopez Inc. Below that is First Philippine Holdings, 60.67% owned by Lopez Holdings. Below FPH, the structure branches into the operating businesses: First Gen and, beneath it, EDC; Rockwell Land; the industrial park; and the rest of the companies that actually run the plants and build the buildings. Control flows downward through those levels, and so does the proxy that carries it. At the September 14 meeting of Lopez Holdings, Piki remained chairman and CEO, while his brother Jay Lopez took over as president and COO. Their sister Mercedes “Cedie” Lopez-Vargas took another board seat, strengthening the hold of the Oscar Lopez branch on the 7-member board. Piki had secured the intermediate layer of the corporate chain. The question was whether the consolidation would carry into FPH. That meeting had been delayed for months amid the proxy dispute between Piki and the majority cousins at Lopez Inc., with the Securities and Exchange Commission eventually ordering the election to proceed subject to a preliminary injunction issued by the Mandaluyong Regional Trial Court. When the votes were counted on September 25, Piki’s position at FPH had survived the cousins fight. Piki was re-elected chairman and chief executive, his brother Benjamin Lopez remained vice chairman, and Francis “Giles” Puno, a career executive and his long-time second-in-command, was reappointed president and COO. Piki also kept the chair of both the executive committee and the finance and investment committee, two committees central to executive decisions and the allocation of capital. What happened in the boardroom The composition of the new 15-member board of FPH showed the controlling shareholder’s reach. Roberta “Berta” Feliciano, a veteran director and a cousin from Gabby’s side of the family, had resigned in August, her disclosure stating plainly that her departure followed Crème Investment’s sale of its Lopez Inc. shares to Ang. Then came the meeting itself. Shareholders elected Lee Benjamin Z. Lerma, a corporate lawyer and partner at Romulo Mabanta Buenaventura Sayoc & De los Angeles, one of the country’s older law firms, to the board. Lerma was not a returning FPH director. He was one of 5 new names nominated to the board this year. Minutes later, Lerma was gone. At the organizational meeting that followed the stockholders vote, Lerma resigned. According to FPH’s disclosure, he tendered his resignation “as decided by and agreed with the company’s major stockholder.” Its controlling shareholder is Lopez Holdings, which owns 60.67% of FPH and whose proxy decides the outcome of any FPH election. The board filled the vacancy the same afternoon with Victor Emmanuel B. Santos Jr., an executive vice president of the company, whose name had not appeared among the candidates shareholders were asked to elect. The cash choke point The dispute did not start over green ideology. It started over cash. After ABS-CBN’s free-television operations shut down, the media company faced mounting losses and urgent debts, and needed billions in additional capital. The holding companies above it, Lopez Inc. and Lopez Holdings, depended on dividends flowing up to meet their own obligations. The money was being generated at FPH. Much less of it traveled all the way up the corporate pyramid. The company routed a steady P567 million a year in dividends up to Lopez Holdings, the same figure in each of the past 3 years. Lopez Holdings, after its own overhead and creditors, declared its regular 10-centavo-per-share dividend, distributing roughly P452 million. Because Lopez Holdings is publicly listed, that money goes proportionally to all its shareholders. Lopez Inc., with 54.74%, therefore received only about P247 million. So, billions were being generated several corporate floors below. But only a fraction made the entire journey to the family’s private holding company. But the billions inside FPH were not simply family money waiting to be withdrawn. FPH is a publicly listed company whose shareholders include the Social Security System, which owns 6.62% and invests retirement contributions of ordinary Filipinos, alongside thousands of other shareholders. Its directors owe duties to the corporation and its shareholders as a whole, not simply to the Lopez family several corporate floors above. Gabby’s side found another way to raise cash. It converted part of its Lopez Inc. ownership into cash, then redirected part of the proceeds toward keeping ABS-CBN alive. (READ: [Rappler’s Best] The day Gabby Lopez said, ‘We’re done’) Days after Crème Investment sold its 25.68% stake in Lopez, Inc. to Ramon Ang, ABS-CBN announced a P6-billion rescue package. P2.2 billion would come from Gabby and the other majority cousins through Crème, Mantes and Presta. Outside investor I&C Holdings committed P3.5 billion, while Lopez Inc. would put in another P300 million. That left a fundamental tension running through this family saga: take more cash out of the operating companies now, or leave capital inside them to build the next generation of clean energy assets. First Gen was doing the latter. Its next generation of projects included about P160 billion in geothermal redevelopment over the next 5 years, and roughly P62 billion for the Wawa and Pakil pumped-storage hydro projects. No shortcuts at First Gen The distinction between owning shares and controlling a company became even clearer one floor below—at First Gen. KKR, the American private equity firm that had held roughly a fifth of First Gen for years, sold its entire stake to Angsana Finance Limited, a Cayman-registered vehicle managed by Singapore-based Gateway Partners, for about P25.8 billion, or P36 a share. The sale raised an immediate question: had Angsana bought a path into the boardroom, including the seat left vacant by the resignation of First Gen director Manolo Michael de Guzman? Asked by Rappler at the September 25 meeting, Puno answered it directly: “Because KKR acquired its 19.9% stake in First Gen directly from the secondary market, no shareholder agreement was established with FPH,” he said. “Consequently, Angsana did not obtain any special or contractual governance rights through its purchase of KKR’s holdings, maintaining only the standard statutory rights granted to minority shareholders under the Revised Corporation Code of the Philippines.” In plain English: Angsana bought KKR’s shares, not a separate governance agreement with the Lopezes. Its 19.9% stake gives it substantial economic and voting rights, but Puno said it came with no special contractual governance rights inherited from KKR. P25.8 billion bought Angsana almost one-fifth of First Gen. It did not automatically buy a seat in the boardroom. What they inherited The Lopez cousins’ war did not produce a neat reconciliation. It changed who owns what at the top of the Lopez pyramid, while clarifying who controls much of what lies underneath. Gabby’s branch sold its 25.68% stake in Lopez Inc. to Ramon Ang, converting part of its inheritance into cash. Some of that liquidity went toward the P2.2 billion that Gabby and the other majority cousins committed to keeping ABS-CBN alive. Piki, meanwhile, remained at the helm of Lopez Holdings and FPH. Farther down, FPH continues to control First Gen, which controls EDC. One side monetized part of its inheritance. The other kept control of the operating businesses below. The legal fight is not entirely over: Piki’s contempt petition against 4 Lopez Holdings directors remains pending before a Mandaluyong court. But when he addressed FPH shareholders on Friday, Piki did not mention the family feud. Instead, he talked about inheritance. “Each generation inherits the results of choices made before it,” he said. “Each generation’s choices determine what it leaves behind.” The 3rd generation Lopez cousins has spent much of 2026 fighting over that inheritance: who could speak for the family companies, who could nominate their directors, how their shares would be voted, how much cash should move upward, and ultimately who would decide what happened to the businesses previous generations had built. Gabby’s branch turned part of that inheritance into cash—and put some of it toward keeping ABS-CBN alive. Piki Lopez is securing control over what remains below. – Rappler.com Lala Rimando wrote about Philippine business, and managed newsrooms, including Newsbreak, ABS-CBN, Rappler, and Forbes, for over 25 years. She’s now based in La Union, taking care of her mom with dementia, and working on the multimedia biography of the late John Gokongwei. ALSO ON RAPPLER Who writes the Lopez story? 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