The 11-man Board of Directors of Manila Electric Co., the country’s’ largest power distributor by sales, will soon get a major face lift to reflect the partial divestment of the Lopez Group to Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co.

The list of nominees for directors released yesterday by Meralco also showed San Miguel Corp. (SMC) - the food and beverage conglomerate that last year bought a large stake in the power distributor from a state pension fund - deciding to replace two of its four board representatives.

PLDT has nominated its Chairman Manuel Pangilinan, President Napoleon Nazareno and director Ray Espinosa.

The three will represent the 20 percent stake in Meralco that PLDT’s unit Pilipino Telephone Corp. bought from the Lopez family and the 10.7 percent, separately acquired by PLDT’s employees pension fund.

The three will replace former Meralco President Jesus Francisco, Christian Monsod and former Prime Minister Cesar Virata - all representatives of the Lopez family.

Meralco Chairman Manuel Lopez and President Jose de Jesus were nominated to represent the remaining stake of the Lopez family of around 13.4 percent.

San Miguel, meantime, nominated its President Ramon Ang, who is now vice chairman of Meralco, lawyer Estelito Mendoza, Alan Ortiz and Mario Surio. The last two were nominated instead of current board members Aurora Calderon and Eduardo Cojuangco, San Miguel’s chairman.

Nominated for the two board seats designated for independent directors are current Meralco directors
former Supreme Court Chief Justice Artemio Panganiban and Vicente Panlilio, and businessman Pedro Roxas.

Shareholders are scheduled to hold their annual meeting on May 26, when votes will be cast for the new board.