MANILA - Holding firm Metro Pacific Investments Corp. (MPIC) expects to soon conclude talks to buy an additional 6.7% stake in the Philippines' largest power retailer Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) from the Lopez family, its chairman said on Thursday.

"That is the area of discussion but we should finish the discussion very shortly," MPIC chairman Manuel Pangilinan told reporters.

Oscar Lopez, the patriarch of the Lopez business clan running Meralco for decades, said on Monday the family was in talks to sell half of its remaining 13.4% stake in the power firm to the Pangilinan group.