Filipino-Russian airline to expand in Mindanao ; Lopezes asserts P3-B stake in EPCIB ; Goldilocks --inq7.net

Filipino-Russian airline to expand in Mindanao



Last updated 05:31am (Mla time) 06/23/2006


COTABATO CITY -- A Filipino-Russian airline, Mosphil Aero Inc. will put up international and domestic flights in Mindanao, company president Ibragim Sharifkulov said.

“Our expansion in Mindanao is part of the company’s mission to provide air travel and cargo services to potential tourist destinations in the Philippines needing reliable means of transportation,” Sharifkulov said.

Possible destinations include Zamboanga, Jolo, Tawi-Tawi and Davao, he said.

The Mosphil Aero expansion will help accelerate economic activities and the promotion of Mindanao as a tourist destination, said Jesus Dureza, national peace adviser.

Indonesia’s Merpati Nusantara Airlines currently serves the route between General Santos City in Mindano and Manado in Indonesia, while South Phoenix flies from Zamboanga City to Kota Kinabalu and Sandakan in Malaysia.

Dureza said the government and business sector were working closely to promote flights to increase trade, investment and tourism over the next three years.





Copyright 2006 Inquirer. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.


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Lopezes reassert P3-B stake in Equitable PCI Bank


By Daxim Lucas
Last updated 06:44am (Mla time) 06/23/2006

Published on Page A1 of the June 23, 2006 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer

THE LOPEZ family and its flagship firm, First Philippine Holdings Corp., yesterday reasserted their claim over a P3-billion stake in Equitable PCI Bank that may determine who ends up controlling the country’s third largest financial institution.

Family patriarch Oscar M. Lopez said the 7.13-percent stake sequestered by the government from Trans Middle East (Phils.) Equity Inc. of the Romualdez family actually belonged to the Lopezes as part of their business empire seized by the late strongman Ferdinand Marcos and his cronies soon after the declaration of martial law in 1972.

At a press briefing yesterday, brothers Oscar and Manuel M. Lopez and their nephew Eugenio “Gabby” L. Lopez III issued a joint statement saying their family “has not forgotten the injustice they suffered under the Marcos regime.”

The contested stake covers 51,827,640 Equitable PCI Bank shares with a current market value of P3.8 billion based on the listed company’s latest share price of P73.50.

Equitable PCI Bank resulted from the controversial 1999 acquisition by Equitable Banking Corp. of the much bigger PCIBank, which was then jointly owned by the Lopez family and taipan John Gokongwei Jr.

Equitable gained control of PCIBank after then President Joseph Estrada ordered the state-run pension funds Social Security System (SSS) and Government Service Insurance System (GSIS) to lend it the money to buy the bank.

Curiously, the Lopez family’s renewed interest in Equitable PCI comes at a time when it is being aggressively wooed for a merger by Banco de Oro Universal Bank of mall tycoon Henry Sy Sr.

These merger overtures are being resisted by the GSIS and the Romualdez family, which votes the contested shares. Together, the two groups control close to one-fifth of the bank.


Withdrawal of P138 million

Asked by reporters why the family was reviving its interest in Equitable PCI 20 years after regaining control of its business empire and seven years after selling a stake in the bank, Oscar Lopez said the move was prompted by news reports that former Equitable PCI chair Martin Romualdez withdrew last year P138 million from an escrow account of the shares.

The amount represents accumulated dividends and profit-sharing proceeds of the shares from 1991 to 1995.

The other day, the Lopez family filed a fresh set of complaints with the Sandiganbayan requiring the bank to explain the withdrawal of the funds.

“It’s only now that we heard of this withdrawal so it’s only now that we complained,” Oscar Lopez said, adding that the claim had actually been pending in the courts since 1988.

He said the family had no plans of siding either with the Henry Sy group or with the GSIS in the battle for control over the bank’s board, even as he acknowledged that the contested stake -- equivalent to only one board seat -- could sway the fight in either direction.


Swing vote

“This is a swing vote. That’s why I became chair,” Oscar Lopez said, recalling the time his family edged out the Gokongwei group for control of the bank in the 1990s with the help of the very same contested shares.

“It’s more of the principle of the thing,” he said about the Lopez family’s motive for reasserting its claim. “We will decide later on what to do with it, if we want to sell.”
“I’m sure both groups would want [to buy the shares] anyway.”

Lopez claimed that the Equitable PCI shares were part of the bigger hoard of shares under Meralco Securities Corp. -- the pre-martial law flagship firm of the family -- that were wrested from it under duress by the Marcos regime through his Meralco “account manager” Benjamin “Kokoy” Romualdez, the father of the bank’s former chair Martin Romualdez.

“The late Eugenio Lopez Jr., eldest among the sons of industrialist Eugenio H. Lopez Sr. and father of Gabby, was imprisoned by the dictatorship and used as bait to gain control of Lopez assets, including Meralco, ABS-CBN Broadcasting Corp., the Manila Chronicle, telegraph company PT&T and PCIBank,” the family’s joint statement read.

The Inquirer’s text messages and calls to Martin Romualdez and his brother Philip, who was at one point a nominee to the bank’s board, were not answered.





Copyright 2006 Inquirer. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.



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Goldilocks wants more than P2B


By Victor Agustin
Last updated 11:49pm (Mla time) 06/22/2006


Published on Page B3 of the June 23, 2006 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer

GOLDILOCKS has indicated that it wants more than the reported P2-billion offer made by Pancake House to acquire the country’s biggest bakeshop chain.

“It is a well established and universal principle that any business is for sale, if the price is right,” Goldilocks president Freddie Go said in a press statement. “Make us an offer we can’t refuse.”

Go said that only “a certain branch of the family” was willing to cash out, apparently referring to his sister-in-law Milagros Leelin-Yee.

Go is married to Milagros’ younger sister, Clarita Leelin, who, together with their sister-in-law Doris Wilson-Leelin, started Goldilocks on Pasong Tamo in 1966.

From a first-day sale of P574, Goldilocks ended 2005 with more than P4 billion in domestic sales. From the 10 employees and two stands in that first store, Goldilocks has grown to 199 Philippine stores and 17 branches in the United States and Canada.

The exponential growth apparently came starting in 1991, when Goldilocks started franchising. Of the 199 local stores, about two-thirds are controlled by franchises.

Go also disclosed that Pancake House CEO Martin Lorenzo first broached the idea of acquiring Goldilocks a decade ago, “but in 10 years, nothing really concrete has happened.”

According to the grapevine, Milagros Leelin-Yee is now in the United States to persuade her sister, Clarita, who runs the US and Canada operations, to agree to the Pancake House acquisition.

Their sister-in-law, Doris, is now retired but would apparently go along with whatever course that may be undertaken by the extended family, which incidentally now includes the second generation also working for Goldilocks.