Biz Buzz: Wack Wack war rages on

Remember the war in Wack Wack Golf and Country Club between the camps of former president Philip Ella Juico and current president Benjamin Abalos? You’d be forgiven for thinking it was all over (and so did we), but apparently tensions are still running high and the war goes on.

Biz Buzz recently received word that a fresh salvo was being fired at the Juico camp for his policies during his tenure as president of one of the country’s most exclusive golf courses.

Juico, of course, earlier told Biz Buzz that he had worked to have the club’s fitness center upgraded at absolutely no cost to Wack Wack and its members, thanks to a deal with Pilipinas Shell. Shell donated funds to the club for the renovation of the gym, as well as the president’s office and the pro shop.

But the anti-Juico camp would have none of it. According to them, this supposed donation was no donation at all. One source says that, contrary to the former president’s claims, the money that Wack Wack received was, in fact, advanced payment from Shell for the right to build a gasoline station inside the club’s compound.

“Now, as to why the club would need a gasoline station inside its premises is beyond us,” said the source, who pointed out that a full-service gasoline station (albeit run by Shell’s larger competitor, Petron) already stands at the corner of the street that leads to the main Wack Wack club entrance.

“It’s actually just two minutes away,” the source said.

According to the Wack Wack insider, the Abalos camp is now taking a close look at the actions of the Juico administration to see if the latter exceeded his authority when he signed the deal with Shell. In particular, they’re studying if the deal is disadvantageous to the club and if it went through the correct process before it was sealed.

This being a tit-for-tat battle, we should expect to hear from the Juico camp next. Abangan. Daxim L. Lucas

FVR revisits NU

Still euphoric over the recent victory of the Sy family-led National University in UAAP men’s basketball after a 60-year drought, SM Investments Corp. chief finance officer (CFO) Jose Sio managed to inject NU into a panel discussion during last Wednesday’s Chartered Financial Analysts (CFA) Summit hosted by the Philippines.

In a panel about boardroom insights, Jollibee Foods Corp. CFO Ysmael Baysa was talking about how he believed there would be no change in policy direction whoever would become the new Philippine president in 2016.

He said  the technocrats in the country advising every president—bred in the country’s top universities like UP, Ateneo and La Salle—tended to think alike.

But wait, there’’s NU, Sio said. When NU was offered to the SM group years ago, he said it had less than 1,000 students. The SM group took over in 2008 and has since then expanded the college student population to 6,597 (on top of 512 elementary and 658 high school students under NU’s Nazareth School).

Yet the NU brand itself carried prestige, Sio suggested, noting how similarly named universities were held in high esteem in Taiwan and Singapore.

Building up NU’s capability in sports, Sio said, was indeed part of the strategy for NU, which has produced two presidents in its long history. He noted that President Fidel V. Ramos aka FVR and President Carlos P. Garcia were graduates of this university.

“President Ramos hasn’t visited NU for the last 50 years. Now that we’re champion, he visited,” Sio said, eliciting laugher from the audience. FVR was among those who cheered for NU during the do-or-die championship match against Far Eastern University on Oct. 15 (which as earlier stated, was also the 90th birthday of SM group founder Henry Sy Sr.).

Panel moderator Mark Yu, CFO of Seaoil Philippines and a former president of CFA Society of the Philippines, said in jest that maybe the next president ought to come from NU. Doris C. Dumlao

Outstanding private banker

Filipino expat Renato “Bing” de Guzman, chief executive officer of Bank of Singapore, was recently named  “Outstanding Private Banker for Asia Pacific” at the 24th annual Private Banker International Wealth Summit 2014, the longest running global private banking conference.

Bank of Singapore, deemed as Asia’s global private bank, was likewise named “Outstanding Private Bank for Southeast Asia” and “Outstanding Private Bank for Asia Pacific.”

Three yuppies under De Guzmanewardship—Kenny Chia, Dennis Chua and Agnes Goh—were also named “Outstanding Young Private Bankers” in the same conference organized by Private Banker International, a publication focused on the global wealth management community.

De Guzman leads a 1,400-strong organization with about $51 billion in assets under management. He built the regional private banking business of Dutch financial giant ING, whose banking franchise in the Philippines he likewise established.

After the global financial crisis, ING Asia Private bank was sold to OCBC Bank and became Bank of Singapore in 2010.  The management team led by De Guzman was mostly kept intact.

During the awarding ceremonies at Singapore’s Fullerton Hotel on Oct. 17, De Guzman said Bank of Singapore was poised to end another record year in terms of net profitability, making a five-year continuous growth.

“Just like everyone in this room, we are very passionate about the business of private banking. We put our clients at the center of everything we do. We assume the roles of analyst, wealth manager, counselor and even psychiatrist to our clients because we appreciate that they have worked hard to grow their wealth, and it is our responsibility to help them continue to grow, protect and transmit their wealth, for many generations to come,” De Guzman said. Doris C. Dumlao

PPP challenge

The Public Private Partnership (PPP) Center team, led by its executive director Cosette Canilao, might be a little relieved that its North American roadshow ended when it did.

Days after that trip concluded, President Aquino had announced his “inclination” to rebid the controversial P35.4-billion Cavite Laguna Expressway deal. This turned out to be an equally controversial move with a very uncertain outcome—for Calax and the entire PPP Program.

The PPP Center had just finished a marketing drive from Toronto to New York and Washington, to drum up investor interest for about 50 deals in the pipeline valued at more than $20 billion.

While that seemed to go well, investors’ queries—no doubt—would have been more pointed had they known about the possibility of a Calax rebid.

Certainly, John Forbes, senior adviser at the American Chamber of Commerce in the Philippines, was less than pleased with the news.

“Foreign investors expect the bid rules to be followed very closely,” Forbes told Biz Buzz. “Thus the delay of Calax and not following PPP rules strictly are worrisome.”

“The integrity of the bidding process should be the paramount concern and not the total ‘offer’ to the government,” Forbes added.

Businessmen from Europe, which President Aquino visited last month partly to lure investors to the PPP Program, were also concerned.

“We need infrastructure badly and delaying bidding processes by changing or not adhering to bidding rules is bad news and will drive away investors,”  said Henry Schumacher of The European Chamber of Commerce of the Philippines.

President Aquino, citing the wide gap between the offers of the Ayala-Aboitiz tandem (P11.659 billion) and disqualified San Miguel Corp. (P20.1 billion) last June, likely feels a rebid would be the path of least resistance, or at least the one where he would not appear favoring any party.

To be fair, the President has not yet announced his final decision. But whatever it is, his say could either move the program forward or swiftly bring it to uncharted, and likely undesirable, territory. Miguel R. Camus

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