Biz Buzz: Winning streak

They say good things come in pairs or threes but the transportation department—which is the one agency now that needs a positive lift as Metro Manila commuters simmer on MRT’s woes—has been defying those averages.

Over the past two weeks it has signed a PPP contract, awarded a key airport PPP and, last Thursday, received affirmations from the United States Federal Aviation Administration and the European Union, allowing expanded flights to the US and Europe.

There was so much good cheer Thursday that even Cebu Pacific, which was removed from a “blacklist” by the EU, overlooked the fact that their news was eclipsed by the FAA’s own announcement—or that Ramon Ang of rival Philippine Airlines made a surprise appearance at the CebuPac-EU press conference.

(Biz Buzz learned that Ang was invited by the Civil Aviation Authority of Philippines at the last minute because of the FAA announcement that the country’s category 1 status was restored after six years).

It was a fleeting scene of friendship between “idol” Lance Gokongwei of Cebu Pacific and his “Kuya” Ang as both recognized efforts by the team of CAAP director general William Hotchkiss III and deputy director general John Andrews.

On PPPs, the keystone infrastructure program received a boost as losing bidders gave the transportation department’s bids and awards committee passing marks for awarding the project. The P17.5-billion Mactan Cebu International Airport was awarded to the Megawide-GMR consortium last April 4 despite various issues raised by the Filinvest Group, the partner of Singapore’s Changi Airport.

Biz Buzz reached out to the five losing bidders (excluding Filinvest, which expressed its “disappointment” at the decision) and each one felt the bidding process was conducted in a fair and transparent manner.

A few of them even noted that the decision bolstered the PPP program in the eyes of investors, although that would depend on the results of a petition filed by Sen. Sergio Osmeña III to the Supreme Court to halt the project.

As noted, more work still needs to be done and at a faster pace—we hope—as time is running out for the current administration. But for this brief moment we felt that recent achievements are worth mentioning. Keep ’em coming.—Miguel R. Camus

Next PNB president

Kapitan Lucio Tan-led Philippine National Bank has a penchant for bank presidents. It has the most number of ex-bank presidents in its board, at one point in recent history reaching five of them, but for the upcoming annual stockholders’ meeting on May 27, four ex-bank presidents are up for election: Florido Casuela (Land Bank), Deogracias Vistan (Solid Bank) and Reynaldo Maclang and Federico Pascual (both ex-chiefs of Allied Bank).

But compared to many of its peers, PNB has likewise had the most frequent changes in bank presidency in recent years.

During his first term as PNB president, Omar Byron Mier spent five years at this post (2005 to 2010) and was succeeded by Eugene Acevedo, whose brief stint ended in 2011, after which he was succeeded by Carlos Pedrosa (ex-president of Pilipinas Bank and First e-Bank).

In mid-July of 2012, unfortunately, Pedrosa suffered a stroke and had to retire and Mier was recalled in an acting capacity and formally reappointed in February of last year.

But Mier, 67, is retiring a second time around (although he never really left the group in the last 12 years) “for health reasons.” In announcing his retirement, the PNB board “expressed appreciation for his 12 years of dedicated and fruitful service to the bank, leading PNB from its period of rehabilitation to the merger with Allied Banking Corp.” The board added: “His leadership has been pivotal in PNB’s resurgence to becoming the bigger and stronger bank it is today.”

Mier is stepping down effective May 27 this year, during which the bank would have conducted its stockholders’ meeting and appointed a successor during the organizational meeting.

Speaking of ex-bank presidents, PNB is expected to tap someone from its pool of ex-presidents to fill the void. Most bets are on Allied Bank veteran Maclang.

Maclang, 75, holds a Bachelor of Laws degree from the Ateneo de Manila University. He has been with Allied Bank since 1977 and was formerly a longtime president of Allied Savings Bank (1986 to 2001) and a longtime president of Allied Bank (2001-2009.)—Doris C. Dumlao

‘We swear we don’t know’

We thought the sharp uptick in the share price of Manila Bulletin Publishing Corp. was impressive last Thursday, having risen by 91 percent in the days following the demise of the company’s chair, Emilio T. Yap.

But we had, apparently, not seen everything yet.

On the Philippine Stock Exchange last Friday, MB stocks shot up another 49 percent to end the session at P1.39 a share (its highest in at least five years … which is the oldest record we can access at the moment). And mind you, value turnover on the usually illiquid stock—where only P2,000 worth of shares change hands on some days—exceeded P42 million on Friday.

So since the publishing magnate passed away last April 7, MB’s share price has zoomed by a whopping 176 percent.

Queried by the bourse, MB issued a statement that it “hereby declares under oath that our company has no knowledge of any information that could have triggered the said unusual price movement.”

Maybe the investing public is just excited over the newspaper’s future?—Daxim L. Lucas

Philam’s taxes

With the tax season coming to its conclusion tomorrow (Tuesday), high-profile individuals and corporations are again striving to make it known that they pay their taxes faithfully and diligently.

The latest to do so is insurance giant Philippine American Life and General Insurance Co., which recently made clear that it was a good corporate citizen.

The company’s main point for stressing this was that the Bureau of Internal Revenue’s list of Top 500 corporate taxpayers was apparently based only on the regular and minimum corporate income taxes, to the exclusion of other types which the insurer had paid.

But when other taxes—like final and expanded withholding taxes—are included in the computation, Philam Life actually paid almost P1.6 billion for the 2012 tax year, according to the insurer’s chief financial officer, Andreas Rosenthal.

Going forward, expect more corporations to be even more vocal about how much taxes they paid—probably because it is a badge of honor … and because BIR chief Kim Henares is watching.—Daxim L. Lucas

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