The board of Manila Electric Co. will likely appoint Jose de Jesus, former president and chief executive of Manila North Tollways Corp., to replace Jesus Francisco as president of the country?s biggest power distributor.

Company sources said the Meralco board was set to announce the appointment of De Jesus, former secretary of the Public Works Department in a meeting next week.

De Jesus was Manila North Tollways president until last year, when the Lopez Group through its infrastructure arm, the First Philippine Infrastructure Development Corp., sold its stake to Metro Pacific Investment Corp.

De Jesus served as MNTC president and chief executive from 2000 to 2008. He was executive vice president of Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. from 1993 to 1999 and public works secretary from 1990 to 1993.

Meralco announced the retirement of Francisco from the company effective Jan. 31.

Francisco will remain on the board of directors until the next stockholders? meeting in May, and retain his positions as chairman of the board of Miescor, a wholly-owned Meralco subsidiary, and president of Clark Electric Distribution Corp., which is jointly owned by Meralco and Angeles Electric Corp.

Sources also said they expect representatives of San Miguel Corp. to attend the meeting next week.

SMC bought a 27 percent stake in Meralco for P30 billion last year.

The Philippine Stock Exchange, meanwhile, fined Meralco P150,000 for failing to disclose a dispute with Land Bank of the Philippines after lifting the suspension of trading on the company?s shares.

The PSE said in a letter to Meralco that the failure of the company to disclose the cancellation of 42 million Meralco shares in the name of Land Bank violated the rules of the exchange.

The exchange said the disputed shares constituted a significant portion of Meralco, or 3.77 percent of issued and outstanding shares. Alena Mae S. Flores