For these tycoons, three's not a crowd

This is not a love story, and certainly not the whirlwind kind, but the characters aren't any different.

- IRIS GONZALES

There's Cupid, the so-called god of love; there's a 'promiscuous' partner; then a third wheel and a courtship that started just days before Valentine's Day a year ago.

Indeed, the landmark deal that transformed tycoons Manuel V. Pangilinan, Ramon S. Ang, and Sabin M. Aboitiz as the country's liquefied natural gas or LNG triumvirate, did not happen overnight.

It started, initially between MVP and RSA, some 3,000 kilometers away from Manila. It was in Japan or the so-called Land of the Rising Sun where Pangilinan and Ang first tinkered with the idea of rising above their business rivalry.

In the Love Month of February 2023, just a week before Valentine's Day, the Cupid for business deals pointed his arrow - the one with the golden tip-on some of the country's tycoons.

At a dinner hosted by Mitsui & Co. in the glittering Maple Room of Hotel Okura in Tokyo on Feb. 8, 2023 for President Marcos and the Philippine business delegation, some of the country's biggest tycoons were present - Pangilinan, Ang, Aboitiz, Jaime Augusto Zobel de Ayala, Kevin Tan, Alfred Ty and many more, along with key players in the country's political and business arenas.

On the sidelines, sources said, Pangilinan and Ang got this idea of working together in business as they did in sports when they partnered to form the formidable Gilas Pilipinas national basketball team in 2022.

Thus, the idea to partner outside Gilas was born - from tollways to power.

It was a win-win deal for both business groups. In the case of power, it meant having more power supply for the MVP Group's Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) and for Ang-led San Miguel Global Power, it meant unlocking the value of its power plants to further strengthen its war chest.