Buenaventura named AG&P chair

Privately held construction firm Atlantic Gulf & Pacific Co. of Manila (AG&P) has appointed businessman Cesar Buenaventura as its new chair, filling the void left by American entrepreneur Joseph Sigelman who was facing legal proceedings in the United States.

Sigelman, 42, was arrested in the Philippines on Jan. 3 for alleged involvement in a bribery case in Colombia when he was co-chief executive officer of oil and gas firm PetroTiger Ltd.

The AG&P board accepted Sigelman’s resignation and immediately named Buenaventura as his replacement, the company said in a statement on Wednesday.

In the statement, AG&P stressed it was neither affiliated nor connected with the company that Sigelman, a former investment banker at Goldman Sachs, used to head.

“AG&P is not a party to or otherwise involved in these proceedings,” the company said.

“The operations of AG&P and the management team led by Marcial Morales Jr., president and chief executive officer, are unaffected by this action. AG&P, if requested, will cooperate fully with all relevant authorities,” the company said.

AG&P is a construction firm specializing in modularization, or building large pieces of infrastructure such as power plants or refineries piece by piece (or module).

Based on offshore reports, Sigelman and other colleagues were charged in the US of paying bribes to an official at Ecopetrol SA (Ecopetl), Colombia’s state-controlled oil company, for a $39.6-million oil service contract.