The Lopez family’s deepening legal struggle hasn’t stemmed from disputes at the personal level, rather it’s based on deeper differences about how capital is allocated. From the breakaway P29.5-billion Casecnan bid to the multibillion-peso deals with Prime Infrastructure, the story is one that some investors see as a departure from the old-fashioned financial discipline of business management, towards a strategic belief. Minority shareholders have challenged the economics and consistency of these decisions — they also have bigger issues with governance, valuation standards and who at the end creates value across the group.

The corporate bloodsport among the Lopez family’s feuding cousins, centered on Federico “Piki” Lopez and Eugenio “Gabby” Lopez III, is the culmination of what some investors see as a series of alleged poor investment choices made by the majority over the years — choices which have rubbed a portion of the shareholder base the wrong way. The tipping point could be the June 2025 sale of a 60% share of the Lopez conglomerate’s gas-fired power assets to ports magnate Enrique Razon’s Prime Infrastructure Capital for about P50 billion through First Gen Corporation. Months later, in February 2026, the relationship deepened, with First Gen pledging P75 billion to buy a 40% share in Prime Infra’s pumped-storage hydro portfolio, containing P62.5 billion that would be used for future project development.

Must Read [Vantage Point] What does First Gen’s sale to Razon’s Prime Infra mean? Each of these transactions, when taken in isolation, can be rationalized. The partial sale releases capital while still retaining exposure.

The pumped-storage investment fits into the long-term trend of moving toward renewable energy and grid stability. On paper, these moves represent portfolio repositioning — away from fossil dependency and toward transition infrastructure. But markets do not process transactions separately.

They evaluate sequences. When viewed in a linear fashion, these moves start to form a pattern — as some investors increasingly interpret them as a reconfiguration of risk and control across strategic platforms, not as disciplined recycling of capital. To appreciate why this trend has attracted such close scrutiny, one has to return to the 2023 bidding for the Casecnan Hydroelectric Power Plant.

CASECNAN. The government turns over ownership and operation of the Casecnan Hydroelectric Power Plant in Pantabangan, Nueva Ecija to First Gen subsidiary Fresh River Lakes Corp. in February 2024 after the Lopez power generation firm won the auction with a US$526-million offer, way above the government’s minimum bid price. Courtesy of First Philippine Holdings Corp. website What went before After the expiry of its build-operate-transfer agreement in 2021, the government sought to privatize the 165-megawatt Casecnan hydroelectric facility through a competitive bidding process.

By early 2023, interest was widespread, with roughly 14 groups showing interest before the selection process narrowed them down to a shortlist of serious contenders. By the time bids were opened in May 2023, the process had already shown what the asset was worth based on what different bidders were willing to pay. Fresh River Lakes Corp. of the Lopez group made a bid of around P29.4–P29.6 billion, the highest in the auction, significantly above the government’s minimum price of about P12.7 billion, and competing bids clustered roughly between Aboitiz’s Neptune Hydro at around P14.4 billion, and the EEI-led consortium at around P16.7 billion.

The gap was striking: It was 76% higher than the next highest bidder, and more than twice the minimum price. Independent bidders, based on their own models, had worked their way to valuations in a fairly small band. First Gen’s bid did not just win — it reset the valuation range of the entire auction; it wasn’t just a premium, it was a step-change in valuation.

When bids are this far apart, it usually doesn’t mean something went wrong with the process. It simply means one bidder sees the asset very differently from everyone else. Management’s explanation was strategic.

Casecnan was not simply a hydro asset but a platform — an operating plant in a country where new hydro construction will have to grapple with years of permitting, regulatory tug-of-war, and environmental constraint. To obtain it was to avoid time, risk, and uncertainty. Minority group rattled Nothing wrong with that logic.

But strategy does not suspend arithmetic. Within months, minority shareholders began to express a competing view — formal and rooted in financial discipline. Drawing on comparable hydro operations, they estimated Casecnan’s anticipated returns, even under optimistic assumptions, to be just between 4.8% and 5.8%.

Against an estimated cost of capital of 6.8%, the conclusion was hard to avoid: the acquisition risked being value-destructive. The critique extended beyond returns into valuation and governance. In a lette