Good afternoon. Thank you for joining this online briefing to discuss First Pacific's 2026 first 6 months financial and operating results.

Results presentation visuals are available on the First Pacific website www.firstpacific.com under the Investor Relations section, Presentation page. Please note this results briefing is being recorded and the replay will be available on First Pacific website this evening in the Investor Relations section.

If there are any participants from the media, please note the Q&A session is open for investors and analysts only. If you would like to raise questions, please contact us when the briefing finished.

Today we have with us our CFO, Mr. Joseph Ng, Associate Director John Ryan, and other senior executives from the head office in Hong Kong.

Over to you, John, for the presentation, please.

Thank you very much, Sarah. Folks.

We're looking at the presentation we posted on our website at lunchtime. Let's begin with a new page 3, which lists some of the highlights of the first half results of First Pacific and its operating companies.

Our recurring profit, while it was down a little bit from 2025 first half, it was the second highest ever. That's notwithstanding weaker rupiah and peso.

More on that a little bit later. Thanks to the sterling work of our finance and treasury people, Standard & Poor's have upgraded our credit rating to BBB with a stable outlook.

Sorry, BBB-. We've got a stable distribution to shareholders with a yield at around 5.4%, and of the five analysts who cover First Pacific, they've all got buy or outperform recommendations.

Indofood continued its run of record highs with core profit up 7% to a record high. For the full year, its food division, ICBP, sees sales going up as much as 7% for the full year with a strong EBIT margin between 20 and 22%.

Interestingly, in the second quarter, as they reported on their own results conference call a couple of weeks ago, overseas noodle sales were up 31% in the second quarter. That's an important engine of growth for Indofood.

Now, over at Metro Pacific, again, record high core profit driven mostly by Meralco, but growth from other businesses as well. For the full year, core profit's likely to see a fourth record high in a row.

Likewise, PLDT has its highest ever first-half service revenues and EBITDA with positive free cash flow. Its credit rating is BBB and it has a very nice dividend yield of 8%.

I'll speak a little bit about their fintech, the Maya digital banking unit, which saw its contribution increase quite a bit in the first half of the year. Over at PacificLight, that's our LNG-fired power plant in Singapore, revenues rose 12% and construction has gone underway now on a hydrogen-ready combined cycle gas turbine power plant, which will open about halfway through 2029.

Many of you have perhaps some interest in Philex Mining, which is developing a new mine down in the southern island of Mindanao called Silangan with rich reserves of copper and gold. We've got two board directors of that company here with us today, and they can tell you about that in the Q&A.

In the meantime, its older mine, Padcal, doubled its contribution to First Pacific earnings with much higher metal prices, notwithstanding lower volumes of production. Let's skip over two pages to page 5 with the usual snapshot of the shape of our gross asset value: $4.8 billion.

Indofood's just over 1/3, MPIC just over 1/4, and PLDT just over 1/5 with the Philex group of companies, that includes Philex Mining and PXP Energy as well as some notes issued to First Pacific by Silangan. Now that's just under 10%.

Then PLP, you see it's 9% of our GAV. You might have noticed that we have incrementally been increasing its value to First Pacific, and that's because of the money we are putting in to help finance our share of that new power plant mentioned a moment ago.

Okay. Let's go one page down.

We've got turnover up 6%, not quite a record high, we've seen a little bit higher. A contribution from operations, this is all in US dollars of course, was down 2%, and that's because of weaker rupiah and peso, which were down by 5% and 6% respectively average exchange rate over the first six months of the year.

Indofood and MPIC, however, did deliver their highest ever first-half revenues on continuing growth and demand for what they offer to their customers. Now, while our recurring profit was down 3%, it was still the second highest we have ever achieved at First Pacific in our 45-year or so history.

The interim distribution to shareholders, a very important measure of of our performance, is unchanged at 13 Hong Kong cents per share notwithstanding the decline in contribution and recurring profit. Now, over to the next page for a brief word.

You've got the credit ratings we have at the top of those bullet points with the increase by S&P to BBB- with stable outlook. Our interest coverage ratio is 4.8 times at the end of June, well above our comfort level.

Gross debt and net debt, little change really from 6 months earlier. Our blended interest cost about 4.5% with an average maturity of 3.4 years.

Now, some of you, particularly if you're debt investors, will want to hear what we're going to do about our bond that's maturing next September, in about 13 months, a $350 million blue column there in the column chart. It's a bit less than 1/4 of all our borrowings, and we've got the the matter well in hand.

Now, quick leaf look at Indofood. Record highs for net sales and core profit.

The outlook is very strong with ICBP sales gaining up as much as 7%, EBIT margin at 20 to 22%, and very healthy CapEx at 5.5 trillion rubles over at ICBP and for the rest of Indofood another 4 trillion. Did I say rubles?

Rupiah. Another 4 trillion rupiah.

Now on page 9, a quick snapshot of ICBP. Record-high net sales and core profit up just a little bit, 1% to 5.4 trillion rupiah as cost of goods sold rose about 12% in local currency terms.

Now a brief snapshot on page 10. That rising stacked column chart shows you what the biggest contributors to the earnings at Indofood were, and as ever, it has been noodles, which just keep growing very, very strongly.

As you can see in the blue box on the right, it Noodles all by themselves constitute a little bit less than half of all sales by value at 46%. Now let's turn to Metro Pacific on page 13.

You see where our almost 50% stake of MPIC makes up 26% of our gross asset value and measured at $1.2 billion. As a reminder, that's the valuation of when it was privatized way back in the autumn of 2023, I think it was.

Now, if you look at the market caps of two of its biggest companies, Maynilad and Meralco, that $1.2 billion looks a little small. Likewise, when you consider that the analyst who cover us and others put a rather higher value on that.

I find that personally very interesting because it implies that our NAV discount isn't really not what you might think it is if you're using the 1.2 billion. Now, turn to page 14, we can look at the contribution from the main businesses.

Now, the three biggest ones: Meralco, toll roads, and Maynilad, the water company listed in November, all delivered record-high revenues and record-high core profits, and you can see their contribution to earnings at MPIC in the bottom left chart. The water contribution is down solely because MPIC sold down in the IPO back in November, reducing its economic interest from over 50% to down to round about 38%.

I won't fill up valuable time going blow by blow with all their operating companies. We can get over into them during the Q&A.

Let's jump, please, to page 22, where we'll have a quick look at PLDT, where, again, it seems every half year and full year, we see another successive record high in service revenues. I've lost count of it, and there's a similar story with EBITDA over at PLDT, where it was up 1%, again, to a record high.

On the full year, these two items are expected again to report consecutive records high. Now, an important item for us to look at when considering PLDT is on page 23.

As you can see, we've got that red line on the top chart on the right-hand side. That's our CapEx to service revenues, and the columns themselves are the pardon me, money figures for the for the dollar figures for those CapEx expenditures.

2022 was the highest ever, and as you can see, it has fallen very, very sharply to below 20%. In the first half of 2026, it was 19% of service revenues, and we expect the downward trend will continue.

I believe it was in the last quarter of last year that PLDT went positive free cash flow, and that has continued through the first six months of 2026. Turning now to page 25, a brief word about PLDT's fintech, and that's a digital bank called Maya.

Maya's contribution to PLDT's profit in the first half of the year was up just a bit less than 40% to 559 million pesos versus 406 billion in the first half of 2025. As these various column charts down below show you, the growth over at Maya, whether you're looking at deposit balances or loans outstanding, remains very, very strong.

The talk in the local media is that there will be an IPO of this business one day and you can ask about that in the Q&A, and I'm sure we won't be able to tell you very much. Now let's turn to page 26, a brief look at PLP, PacificLight Power, our LNG business, power business in Singapore.

As you can see, electricity prices were up a bit in the first half of 2026 from the You can see on the line chart down below. The core profit was down 26%.

That's a big decline on lower non-fuel margin for electricity sold under renewed retail contracts. Very much the future is a big part of the story at PLP, which is building a very large hydrogen-ready power plant, which we expect to be running in commercial operation in about the middle of 2029 as mentioned earlier.

Now, over to Philex, a very exciting mining company, those of you who know me personally know that I'm a big fan of Philex. The Padcal mine saw Well, overall, the business saw revenues down 9% because of lower tonnage.

Frankly, the equipment in the Padcal mine, which has been going for over half century, is getting a little worn out and there are breakages. There is lower tonnage, lower grades, but the prices for the metals, as you can see in the blue box at the bottom right, were very, very much higher, and that resulted in a big increase in core profit of 56%.

Now, Silangan, which is discussed on the following page, page 28, is on track to open commercial mining towards the end of 2026. We are very excited about that, and when they settle in and everything's going smoothly, we will get in touch with fund managers to inquire whether they would like to go down and have a look at that mine.

As you can see in the top blue box, the grades of copper and gold in that mine are far higher than what we've got at Padcal, and we're very excited to see what this will be doing for us going forward. Now let's have a little wrap-up on page 29 of my narrative, then we can go to some questions.

This is a chart on the left-hand side, rebasing our recurring profit and exchange rates of peso and rupiah to 100 in the year 2020 and how they have changed over time. As you can see, the peso was down 18% in the what?

5.5 years since then, and the rupiah down 15%. That's through to the June 30 exchange rates.

While those are down by those percentage points, you can see our recurring profit has risen enormously. We expect fully for this sort of situation to continue, that mismatch between exchange rates and our US dollar profit numbers because the IMF and many others expect that the size of the economies of our two main markets will be doubling over the course of a 10-year period from 2020 to 2030.

That line chart there is from the IMF's October World Economic Outlook, and we'll update it in a couple of months with the new one. That's a snapshot of where we've been in the first six months of the year.

Executive Director Chris Young has joined us, eager to respond to the questions that you're going to have. Sarah?

Yes. Thanks, John.

We are now ready for questions. Oh, Jeff has the first one.

Jeff, please go ahead.

Hi, sorry sorry. I I I I just found out I was muted.

Yeah. Thanks, John and Sarah.

Maybe starting with three questions. The first one, just want to check on the head office quote other expenses.

I know the amount is not that big, but still, on a year-on-year basis, I think the other expenses rose about three times YoY in the first half to about $7 million. Just trying to understand any reason driving the spike in the expenses at the head office?

That's my first one. Second question, I know, John, you you just touched a bit on the the plan on bond refinancing, which will mature next year.

Just trying to maybe hear a little bit more plan about that. Do we aiming for issuing another bonds, or do we just going for bank loans in about 13 months as we refinance that?

The third question would be just regarding--

Hang on, Jeff. Jeff, let's just start with the two.

Is that okay, mate? You can come back with a third.

Okay. Sure, no problem.

Of course, our CFO Joseph Ng will help you with both of those.

Jeff, it's Joseph here. Maybe I I I respond to the second one first, the bond refinancing.

The $350 million bond will due in September. So, 2027, we have a little bit more than 12 months to go.

We are monitoring the market closely. At the same time, we're talking to a quite a number of banks inviting them to give us proposals, and we'll explore all sorts of refinancing options, including both the the bond market as well as the bank market as well.

We actually received quite a number of good proposals from the banks, and we're looking into all those proposals. As of now, we are not in a rush to to get into either either one of those two loose two solutions.

We're just monitoring the market, because the market, in particular the interest rate market, is as is very volatile. Both the swap and I mean the US Fed and people are a lot of speculation as to what the US Fed would do.

Also people are speculating as to what will be the impact to the long end of the curve after the US Treasury is coming out with all sorts of news and then all sorts of buybacks, all sorts of things. Fundamentally, they also ties to what's happening to the inflation, the the new round of trade war, and the Middle East crisis as well.

All these are very volatile, we are monitoring that closely. I think in due course, I think the management and the board will make the the decision as to where we'll go ahead.

Now, in terms of timing, people are talking about whether we should go say within the fourth quarter before, after the election and maybe coming back next year early next year when the market has new new budgets on the investor side, or or even a later part of that. We are assessing all these advices from different banks, and as I say, we have some time to to to assess the situation and make a decision.

On the other expenses, I I think you're referring to the kind of the corporate overhead and other expenses. If there, when we look we also looked is that there's a kind of a increase in the other expenses.

I think it's mainly because of the provision accrual for certain long-term long-term kind of incentive expenses at headquarters level. Because in 2025, June of 2025, we started a new cycle of the long-term incentive scheme.

For the first 6 months of 2025, it only take maybe half a month's kind of P&L provision a hit, but for the full 2026, we have a full 6 months hit. I think that's the main main reason for driving up the so-called the accrual provision for certain long-term incentive expenses.

Okay. Thank you, Joseph.

Let's move on to a next question. Sarah?

Oh,

the next one will be Timothy from Citi, please. Go ahead.

Oh, thank you, management. Sorry, I thought Jeff I'm sorry, never mind.

I will go ahead with mine first. Got some questions on PLP.

Congratulations on the groundbreaking next month, I think. I saw it on the announcement.

Does management expect some timing gap after the commercial operation that is targeted in 2Q '29 before the plant to ramp to its full capacity? Is it fair to assume, the financing done like account for 40% of the total budget as previous guided?

I think in the announcement, it reset $440 US million. In other words, does it mean the total budget will be somewhere around $1.1 US billion?

Can we assume the $44 million spent by head office in first half '26 to be mostly PLP related? Sorry sorry for the long question, but I will, shall I come back later on the second second one, please?

Okay.

Thank you, Timothy. Can you help him on the cash out from us, and maybe Richard can pitch in as necessary, Joseph?

Talking about PLP?

Yes, I think that's what he's talking about.

I think in very broad term, Timothy, the the project cost for the PLP plant is somewhere around the, I think it's shown here in the slide, it's about 1.2 billion. That's Sing or $900 million US thereabout.

Equity requirement for that is somewhere around $450 million Sing thereabout. We we need to contribute roughly 42% of that.

Our share of that total to all maybe somewhere around $150 million US. You you're correct that the the bulk of the capital investment showing in our cash flow the 40 44, $45 million, the bulk of that is actually for kind of our support to the equity portion for the project.

That's kind of the first part of it. In the course of the remain remaining part of 2026 and certain part of 2027, we still need to put in some more money to meet our, say, altogether roughly 150 million capital investment into the project.

Bear in mind, at the same time, we also collect dividends. We continue to collect dividends from PLP.

It's not that it's all one-sided on the investment. Actually, the financial discipline we impose on PLP is that while we need to kind of get the dividend from them and then when they need money, they need equity, then we put the money in.

That's the kind of the prudent financial discipline we impose on PLP. I hope that has addressed your your question.

Joseph, we are not borrowing to finance our equity contribution? No.

No. Actually, it's all in our cash flow.

Our our debt level, gross at 1.47 and then net probably 1.3 something remains unchanged. I think there's an earlier question about the $350 million refinancing.

It's always financing and all the things that we are doing at the headquarters level in the recent past and going forward until 2027. I think the focus of that is all on refinancing.

We have have no plan of taking on any new debt at the headquarters level. Hmm.

Does that answer it, Timothy?

Yeah. May I have some color on the, the operation after like early in the early years of 2029?

Are we expecting the plant to be, be operating in almost full capacity at the get-go? Or shall we expect some some kind of timing gap before, significant or meaningful contribution from the new plant?

I think it's just too early to tell now because, well, you need to basically kind of assess the so-called the contract procedure. That ties to the progress of progress of the construction of the new plant, right?

Because, well, we are talking about 2029. I think the current timetable is to have it up and running until maybe the first quarter or second quarter of 2029.

You're talking about from today's '26 '26, '27, '28. More than more than 2.5 years to go.

Typically, the existing PLP contract lasts between one year to 3 years. It may be a bit too early to to even talk to the customers about signing up the so-called the customer contracts starting from the second quarter of 2029.

You don't want to face a situation you sign the contract, then after that there's delay in construction and completion, that sort of thing. I think it's just too early to say at this point in time.

Okay. Thank you, Joseph.

Was all that one question, Timothy?

Oh, yeah, yeah. That was a sorry, I had 53 on that.

That was one question. My my last question before I go back to the queue is also about PLP.

Because on the gas supply issue, we actually heard from a Singaporean peer that Shell has actually triggered some kind of force majeure terms, which might lead to gas cost hike despite of the, the long-term contract. I'm just wondering if we are seeing similar discussion going on between PLP and Shell on that?

For the, the non-fuel margin squeeze, given the retail contract terms, usually lasts for maybe 1 to 5 years and with a peak retail contract, which I assume would be dating back to, 2022, are we seeing this kind of margin squeeze to be stabilizing after, the current first half '26 levels?

Maybe I'd address the first part first. The the Shell, I think is not a secret in the market that that Shell did trigger some sort of force majeure provision under the contract because they source some of the some of the gas from Middle East, in particular, Qatar.

They they trigger certain kind of force majeure provision under the contract. That's on the contractual side.

Commercially, there has been kind of ongoing very close and regular kind of discussions between Shell and and for us, PLP, as to how how to handle the situation. For situations like this, normally, you get into the situation of getting alternate resources through Shell and other other resources try to plug the hole.

I think so far, we have been having very good kind of conversation and discussions with with with Shell and to manage this this sort of situation. On one hand, they're triggering the force majeure provision, but on the other hand, they're helping us to source the kind of alternate gas from other places.

There's kind of a timing difference. They give us the gas from other countries and as soon as possible in the future, then kind of gradually kind of you would like repay or cut back the gas supply from from Shell over a certain period of time.

Overall, the impact is not that severe. From what we see, the financial impact and, on the other hand, we get some some better better margins of some some other contracts.

I think it's kind of pretty much a wash-off overall. The impact is not as severe as what we've expected initially.

Thank you, Joseph. Sarah?

Yes. I think the next one would be Tony.

Please go ahead for your questions. Uh

hi. Thank you for the opportunity.

Uh I want to ask question specifically for Indofood. Uh I I haven't seen instant noodle price has increased for the recent two 2 to 3 years maybe uh in this current environment with raw material price up.

Is there any chance that maybe Indomie price will increase in the future? Thank you.

Um

hi, Tony. Um I'm sorry to not be very helpful, um but, broadly speaking, over the fullness of time, prices will go, um and we're not aware of any plans or timing uh for such price increases right now.

Sorry about that.

All right. Thank you for the answer.

Next one would be Anthony. Uh

I think you mean me. It's uh Tony Watson here.

Hi, Tony. Yes.

Hi.

Sorry about that.

Just uh a question and a comment. Um question is regarding the foreign exchange and derivative losses uh detailed on note 3(a) of the uh financials you put out.

Could you give us some background on um what was being hedged, and if the position is still on? Um

Tony, broadly speaking, um at First Pacific head office, the only thing we hedge is uh dividend income. Um and in our reporting, the um the FX gains or losses that you see in our P&L, um those are going to be a mixture of First Pacific head office and the operating companies.

Um Wait. Wait.

Look at page 32. Um and you'll see those numbers broken down by um contribution from each of the units in our review of operations, which you'll find on our website.

I'm afraid they're not here uh in this slide that you see in front of us. Um it's aggregated here um at 51 million uh in the first half of 2026.

I believe, Joseph, the biggest part of that was um the bond from uh ICBP.

Tony Tony, if you're referring the the division of result that we are showing here on the screen, the uh the 51 million foreign exchange loss, a big part of that is attributable to Indofood's uh 2.75 billion bonds, and they they have tranche of 10 years' bond and another 30 years aggregating 2.75 billion. Then if you do the calculation of 6% depreciation of the rupiah in the first six months of 2026, then letting of the tax and everything, so that's something like 40-something million already uh attributable to that foreign exchange loss.

That's a big part of that. Of course, there are some other smaller items, but uh all in all, that's basically that um that foreign exchange loss at uh at Indofood level.

Mind mind you that even though they are not hedging, they're not hedging a 2.75 billion foreign exchange exposure, if you like. On the other hand, they're building up plenty of cash, in particular dollar cash in the balance sheet.

I think, in total, somewhere around $800 to $900 million as of today. Not hedging it, taking a P&L hit in the P&L.

On the other hand, they also have the uh have the uh dollar cash. If you go back to the net debt of um or the net exposure, FX exposure of uh Indofood, you see that the net dollar exposure is somewhere around 1.8, 1.9, remember, uh billion.

It's not 2.75. The difference is the $800 to $900 million cash that they are holding.

Yes. Great.

That's helpful. I think I can work through that.

Um the other thing is just uh I want to put my hand up for the mine tour, if and when that happens. Thanks.

Ideally, before year-end, but we can't promise, Tony.

Yeah.

The next one, is it back to Jeff again? Please go ahead.

Hi, Sarah. Yeah.

My So uh switching a gear a bit to Meralco. Um I know uh with respect to the recent um I think the news about um potential charges on the distribution loss um So I know there are some conversation with the president going on right now, but can you remind us uh on this issue where we are standing at today and are there any key dates we should be watching for uh maybe over the next couple of weeks or months?

Thank you very much. Um

no, Jeff, there there really aren't any key dates um uh to look for. Um what you're asking about is um one of the parts of the electricity bill that households and businesses receive.

There are several parts: there's the generation fee, there's a transmission fee, the distribution fee which goes to Meralco. System loss uh is another fee.

Um generation fee, of course, goes to the producers. Now, the system loss fee uh pays for the electricity which is lost, quite naturally, um as electricity moves through the cables.

Um you ship out 100, and maybe 99.5 arrives. That 0.5 um which doesn't arrive gets put into the bill as the system loss.

Uh some time ago, and then I think it was in the State of the Union, President Marcos suggested that um electricity industry uh should pay that rather than the customers, and that had a consequence for the share prices of lots of power companies, including Meralco, which I think was down year-to-date at the end of June by about 16%. Um so, uh that's where we are.

It's up in the air right now. Um and however the billing changes, I think, at the end of the day, um it won't be Meralco which will be paying that.

Again, that's my own personal view, um and I can't uh predict that will be the future. Um anything more to add, Chris or Joseph, on that?

Um

our next one would be Diego. Please go ahead.

Hi. Um could you give us uh a color on the potential combination of the toll roads of MPIC with uh the SMC group uh toll roads?

Also, if that uh ends up happening, the three largest pieces of MPIC will have a much more updated valuation, Meralco, Maynilad, and the toll roads. If that happens, would you consider changing how you account for its NAV?

Um

for how First Pacific accounts for the NAV of MPIC, Diego?

Yes, exactly. Uh

well, um I I think eventually we will um uh adapt how we view the value of MPIC um as we get more solid uh valuations of the units. Um you're reminding us that Meralco is listed, we can see the value of our economic interest.

First Pacific's economic interest in Meralco is about 23%, I believe. Um and with the listing of Maynilad in November, we have a good, hard number on that um as well.

The implication of your question about um a toll roads merger between San Miguel and MPTC would give us a value, a solid number, for the toll roads business. Um certainly, these three factors would definitely militate for um a revaluation of how we um value MPIC.

Um our 49.9% stake has fixed value since the delisting back in the autumn of 2023. Um Chris, EY, any color you can add to this question?

Like that

Well, one, in terms of the uh combination, I think the due diligence is ongoing. Certainly, we have uh made it clear that the intention is to to merge the businesses at uh some stage.

I I think the challenge is that net asset value or valuation is not the way financial statements are prepared. Financial statements that are prepared and audited are on a historical cost uh basis.

Within the broader financial statements of First Pacific, I think we will continue to follow general accounting practices. As a result, there may well be a difference between what is included in the financial statements under uh general accounting principles and what would be the valuation of the business.

That is not to say that investors, analysts, our investor relations department uh can not themselves do a value a look-through valuation of the business. I think you will find, unfortunately, Diego, that there is uh always going to be uh a difference between the underlying financial statements, which are audited, because the basis on which they are prepared compared to a valuation basis, which is on uh normally on the basis which uh investors would uh well, one of the measures that investors will look at when they just make a decision to invest.

Just to supplement that, that's exactly the the discussion, the basis of getting the the credit rating upgrade from S&P when they take a fresh look about the valuation of MPIC. That's on that basis, we see basically look through the corporate share of MPIC and also addressing point that that Chris was mentioned to have a more commercial approach to value the underlying asset of MPIC.

Given that, well, two of the three major assets under MPIC, the water business and the power distribution or generation business are both listed. The only one unlisted is actually the toll road.

Then that accounts for a big part of MPIC. Of course, there's certain amount of debt at MPIC level.

On that basis of look through this, that they basically revalue, except on a high value of MPIC on the basis of that, the kind of the value of of MPIC is much higher than what we show in books. What also much higher than the privatization value at 2.6 I think 2.6 peso per share,

right? Uh 5.2.

Sorry, 5.2. Sorry, 5.2 peso per share during the privatization exercise.

That's that's kind of uh kind of validated by by S&P in the rating uh process. All the investors, the analysts, they may form their own views as to, well, which which way to go, right?

What is book value or the more commercial approach. Um

Diego, just for your um for your penciling in, um when they increased our rating to BBB-, um uh S&P explained that their value for our stake in MPIC doubled from $1.9 billion to $3.8 billion.

Perfect. Thank you.

Of course.

All right. We have Timothy has additional questions.

Please go ahead.

Hi management. Thank you so much for the another opportunity to ask questions.

I have two question I have two questions. The first one is about Indofood on his payout.

If I if I calculate that correctly, the implied, payout ratio will be somewhere around 24%-ish of of the net earnings per share for for what they are paying for 290 per share. Um and given, Indofood pretty solid cash balance, I think it's around $3 billion US at the at the end of first half.

I'm just wondering if there is any clue on or any color on what they are going to do with the cash balance? Is there any, consideration or at least intend to think about, raising the payout ratio from their end?

I will come back for for the second question. Um

thank you for that very interesting question, Timothy. There are many, many people who want to see what will be done with that around $3 billion uh in cash that's sitting over there in Indofood.

Um the page you're looking at gives you the payout ratio as we accounted for it uh for 2025 full year. Um we will all recall that Indofood pays one dividend a year, generally in late summertime.

Um so the last time Indofood spent money like that, it was what? 6 years ago when they bought um noodles businesses in Middle East and uh North Africa.

That was, I think, $2.98 billion they spent. How they might spend a similar figure of money now is the question you ask, and is a long way of me saying I can't answer that question, sorry.

I I don't think um Timothy, there's any specific plans uh for that at the moment. In terms of what the payout ratio might be going forward, um as John said, it's an annual uh payout.

I think they will be taking into account not just the historic uh uh performance of the company or the balance sheet as it is today, but they will be looking at what happens during 2026 and the outlook going into 2027. Obviously, uh they they are fairly conservative in how they uh determine that payout ratio.

I think they they will really look to 2026 and the outlook for 2027 before they uh they uh set the payout ratio for for next year or for this year, which they pay in 2027.

Thank you, Chris.

What with your second question? Uh

thank you, John, and thank you, Chris, for the color. My second question is about Maya listing plan.

I think just now, like just today, it was reported that GCash is looking for IPO in October. I I have been browsing some relevant, news reports as well.

Although of course, the IPO price is not not confirmed yet, but I I think I read somewhere that they are looking for $8 billion kind of valuation. Or I think Reuters in June actually talked about that main main the parent company is looking to raise $1.5 US billion.

I'm just wondering, just to get a sense like how big is Maya compared to GCash? Like, and [laughter] just to estimate the the size that we are looking for.

Are we still looking to list Maya sometime in 2027 as discussed last time? Thank you.

Chris, EY, turn to you again, please. Um

I think it's not easy to do a direct comparison between the Maya business uh and Globe's GCash business, because really the the focus of the businesses is somewhat different. Um The strength of uh GCash is effectively the the wallet, the GCash uh wallet.

Whereas you can see, I think this is page 5 of the presentation, uh from the investor relations presentation, the one you have here, John, 25? 25.

Oh, sorry. The uh

The real strength of Maya is in its fintech uh platform, in particularly the banking uh platform. You can see that the uh deposits have grown quite robustly, and the net interest margin is quite high.

Um And uh on the basis of the deposit balance growing, um the loans outstanding are also growing. Um it's it's I I I think the GCash valuation uh is helpful, but it's not really going to drive the Maya valuation, because the Maya valuation is really going to be driven, I think, principally by the fintech/banking business of of Maya.

Yes, I think it's fair to say that we would uh I I don't think we can do it as soon as uh GCash, but it would be an intention to list Maya at some stage in the not too distant future.

Basically, one's a wallet, the other is a bank.

Though though Maya does have a wallet, but the bigger part of the business

the bigger part of the business

of GCash is the wallet. Uh the bigger part of the Maya business is the fintech/banking platform.

Okay. Thank you very much, Chris.

Thanks, Chris.

Thank you so much.

Let me have a look. I think the next uh participant have a question is Shireen.

Please go ahead.

Hello. Um so I'd like to ask, given the current uh Nigeria condition that is much better of another impairment for Pinehill investment from Indofood?

Thank you. Uh

sorry, Shireen. Please repeat your question.

We lost you for a moment.

All right. Uh given the current, [audio

gap]

Is there a chance of another impairment for Pinehill investment from Indofood?

No. Uh uh uh we didn't we didn't fully catch your uh question.

Uh but I think uh if it's in respect of the uh a a possible Pinehill impairment, which I think actually was not Pinehill itself, it was the associate company in Nigeria.

Yeah. Uh

I think, um in both cases, the answer would be no. I think the overall Pinehill business continues to perform well.

I think the likelihood of impairment is is the there's no real likelihood of impairment. In fact, in respect of the Nigerian business, one, the business has continued to perform well, and the local uh Nigerian currency, which I think is called the naira, uh has actually uh I'm not sure if it strengthened, but it has not really it's steadied.

It hasn't weakened uh in the past uh few months. Again, there is very little prospect or or no need for any further impairment of that Nigerian uh associate uh there.

I think the that that that impairment, when it happened, was not really because the business underperformed. Uh the business was doing well.

It was that the naira devalued quite sharply over a a period of time. Um

As you can see, um Shireen, uh on the bottom blue box on this page here, uh we've got very strong growth in Asia and Africa, inside of which um are largely are the Pinehill businesses. Um 15% uh growth in sales, and that's by uh US dollar measure.

We're actually feeling quite good about the business overall.

I think Jeff from CLSA has another question.

Thanks. Uh I promise it's my last one.

Um can you can you remind us uh on the PLP uh how how is the renewal schedule of the retail contracts looking for? Basically how many years uh before another round of renewals of the existing contracts?

Thank you very much. Hi, um

Jeff, this is Eliza here. We have a whole range.

Um I'm not at the liberty to tell you the exact percentage, but we have a whole range from 1-year, 2-year to uh 3-years. We don't really have the super long-dated contracts that some of the other competitors have.

Uh but we're quite happy with uh, I would say, a very good distribution amongst those three different tenors.

Thank you, Eliza.

Let's check if we have any other questions coming up. I think we have answered all the questions.

Um Chris, may I ask you um give us the closing remark?

Sure. Thanks, Sarah.

Um well, thank you all for calling in today. I think uh or I hope you've seen from the investor presentation that many of the group's companies have reported record earnings in the first half of the year.

Uh these include Indofood, ICBP, uh Meralco, Maynilad, uh and MPTC toll road uh businesses. While the businesses will face uh some challenges going into the second half of the year, the continued strength of our businesses gives us confidence for the full-year uh outlook.

Um in comparison to our peers, I think we can continue to consider ourselves to be undervalued. We feel that First Pacific is well placed to continue to grow in the medium term as well.

Do get in touch if you need further follow-up. Remember, our IR team will be visiting fund managers abroad in the next several weeks.

Thank you again uh for calling in today.

Thanks, Chris. Um thanks, everyone, for joining today's online briefing, and you can disconnect.

Thank you.