The story
As part of the water privatization in Metro Manila, the Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System awarded contracts to two companies splitting Metro Manila into a west and east zones. Maynilad Water Services Inc. was formed in 1997 as a partnership of the Benpres Holdings Corporation (now the López Group of Companies) and Ondeo Water Services Inc. after it won the bidding to run the water and wastewater services in the West Zone.
Benpres eventually left the partnership in 2006 to settle a US$240 million debt. Then January 24, 2007, a consortium led by Metro Pacific Investments Corporation and the DMCI Holdings, Inc. took over the company and paid the debt by January 2008.
In late 2019, leading figures Manny Pangilinan of Maynilad along with Jaime Augusto Zóbel de Ayala of then Ayala Corporation-led Manila Water (MWC), were then threatened of arrest by President Rodrigo Duterte due to accusations of syndicated estafa, economic sabotage, among others. This was after MWC won a tariff-related international arbitration against the government. The sequence of events resulted to the renegotation of contracts and for Maynilad's part, culminating to enactment of Republic Act No. 11600. As part of the franchise grant conditions, as passed by the Congress of the Philippines and concurred by Duterte, it had to be publicly listed in the local bourse on or before January 2027. It eventually listed on November 7, 2025, more than a year ahead of the deadline.
From Wikipedia’s article on Maynilad Water Services, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.4