Gokongwei sells JG Summit shares
TYCOON John Gokongwei has ceded P32 billion worth of his remaining shares in conglomerate JG Summit Holdings to his heirs.
Based on a regulatory filing on Oct. 28, Gokongwei—who is founder, chair emeritus and director of JG Summit—sold around 475.38 million shares in JG Summit at P68.40 per share.
The 89-year-old tycoon has unloaded shares equivalent to 6.6 percent of JG Summit’s outstanding stock.
Son Lance Gokongwei—director, president and chief operating officer of JG Summit—acquired 165.29 million shares or P11.3 billion of these JG Summit shares unloaded by the patriarch.
After the transaction, Lance now directly controls 7.6 percent of the conglomerate whereas the older Gokongwei’s direct stake has gone down to 2.8 percent.
It was earlier reported that Gokongwei’s daughter, Robina Gokongwei-Pe—president of Robinsons Retail Holdings and also a director of JG Summit—had gobbled up P7.2 billion worth of JG Summit shares that day.
This was equivalent to 105.31 million shares bought at P68.40 each. This gave her around 2.5 percent direct stake in JG Summit.
Since the patriarch has semi-retired, these transactions are seen as a transfer of decision-making powers to the second generation.
In 2006, when he turned 80, the older Gokongwei donated half of his JG Summit shares to charity through the Gokongwei Brothers Foundation, which now controls 27.881 percent of the conglomerate.
JG Summit has interests in food and beverage, real estate, airline, banking and petrochemicals.
Its food and beverage arm, Universal Robina Corp., has established a strong foothold in Southeast Asia over the years and recently expanded to New Zealand, where it took over the largest biscuit-maker, Griffin’s. Recently, its long-bleeding petrochemical business has turned profitable.
The conglomerate has a market capitalization of P511.43 billion as of Monday’s closing.
Based on Forbes magazine’s estimate, Gokongwei is the second wealthiest man in the Philippines with an estimated net worth of $5.5 billion. Doris Dumlao-Abadilla
