The investment firm bought into a Philippine power champion expecting a long-duration infrastructure play. Six years later, foreign-ownership constraints, governance uncertainty, heavy capital requirements and a stubbornly weak stock price have narrowed its exit routes. MANILA— When KKR first bought into First Gen Corp. in 2020, the investment had the hallmarks of a patient infrastructure wager: scarce generating assets, growing electricity demand and a portfolio positioned around natural gas and renewable power. Six years later, the global investment firm’s roughly 19.9% economic interest has become something more complicated—a large minority position that is difficult to expand, difficult to sell and now difficult to take private. KKR’s attempted solution, a ₱35-a-share proposal that would have enlarged its stake and removed First Gen from the Philippine Stock Exchange, was rejected by controlling shareholder First Philippine Holdings Corp., or FPH, as failing to reflect First Gen’s...
Years of Quorn write-downs shrank the asset base. Cash-funded debt repayments lightened the liability side. Now the once-troubled protein business is recovering, cash flow is strengthening, and dividends are rising. Monde Nissin’s balance sheet tells a story that its income statement alone cannot. As of June 30, 2026, the Philippine food manufacturer had ₱14.38 billion in cash, total liabilities of ₱20.24 billion and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.33—figures that make it look more conservative than the company investors encountered after its 2021 initial public offering. Yet that balance-sheet strength didn’t emerge from a single corporate turnaround. It was forged through two distinct cleanup processes, each with very different consequences for shareholders. First came billions of pesos in noncash write-downs tied predominantly to Quorn, Monde’s British meat-alternative business. Those charges reduced goodwill, brand values, plant assets and retained earnings. Then came actua...