SPECIAL REPORT: The Lopez heirs who ran Rockwell but never controlled it

Detailed summary

First of a special report on why Gabby Lopez wants Rockwell Land as ABS-CBN struggles, and why cousin Piki Lopez is letting it go

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For years, the children of former Meralco chairman Manuel “Manolo” Lopez have helped run Rockwell Land. But they never owned enough shares to actually control it. That power belonged to First Philippine Holdings Corporation (FPH), the giant conglomerate led by their cousin, Federico “Piki” Lopez.

Now, rewind to April 2026. Four of Manolo’s children joined eight other Lopez cousins to publicly challenge Piki’s leadership of Lopez Inc., the family’s main holding company. They were fighting the cousin who chaired the company that controlled Rockwell, the very business they had continued running after the family gave up Meralco in 2009. (READ: The company the Lopezes gave up Meralco for: EDC, from oil crisis child to takeover target)

Seven months later, everything is about to change. On November 12, FPH announced that its board approved selling its controlling stake in Rockwell Land to Crème Investment Corporation, a firm tied to Piki’s cousin, Eugenio “Gabby” Lopez III and his siblings. The price tag: ₱15.92 billion.

Once the deal closes, Rockwell leaves Piki’s FPH group and moves under Gabby’s private firm. Gabby’s side of the family has backed Manolo’s children ever since the third-generation cousins’ feud broke out.

Here is the catch, though: Manolo’s children aren’t the ones buying Rockwell. Gabby is. Their direct ownership in Rockwell remains tiny. What does change is who holds the reins of the Rockwell.

Rockwell’s ties to Manolo’s family go back decades, to the days when the Lopezes still ran power distributor Meralco. Manolo spent much of his career there and was its chairman when the family gave up control in 2009.

Rockwell, which was built on Meralco’s old power plant lot in Makati, stayed inside the wider Lopez conglomerate. Yet out of roughly 20 third-generation Lopez cousins, it is Manolo’s children who remain the true face of Rockwell.

Manolo chaired Rockwell until he passed away in…

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