Investors sue Uniwide Holdings head, 2 former execs

MANILA, Philippines–Investors of Uniwide Holdings Inc. filed a case for estafa against the head of the Manila Bay Development Corp. (MBDC) and two former Uniwide executives who, they say, had allegedly conspired to defraud UHI of P2.1 billion that caused bleeding of what used to be the country’s biggest retail chain.

The estafa complaint was filed by the investors led by Brenelie Rualo before the Office of the City Prosecutor in Makati City against MBDC president Jacinto Ng Sr. along with Jimmy Cabangis and Corazon Rey for questionable spending for the construction of its Coastal Mall and then defrauding P381 million more through the payment of unnecessary mall rentals.

Coastal Mall, which was envisioned in the 1990s to become the country’s biggest shopping mall complex, was built on a 10-hectare portion of MBDC’s 40-hectare Central Business Park II in Parañaque City at that time when Cabangis and Rey were Uniwide’s respective chief financial officer and controller.

In her Derivative Suit for Estafa/Other Deceits, Rualo said she was filing the case against the trio on behalf of over 15,000 investors “similarly situated” who bought P4 billion-worth of stocks combined when Uniwide made its Initial Public Offering (IPO) in 1996.

“The amount of P2.1 billion that was squandered was more than half of the P4 billion that was raised through public offering,” said Rualo adding that “the fraudulent acts and unlawful payments couldn’t have been perpetrated without the complicity of Ng of MBDC and the Chief Financial Officer Cabangis and the Controller Rey of Uniwide.”

This complaint was the second case that UHI investors had filed against Ng and MBDC in a bid to legally compel Uniwide’s lessor to return P381 million in rentals and extend by another 20 years the lease on its Parañaque reclamation property along Roxas Boulevard that is home to the Coastal Mall.

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