Bizz Buzz: Balesin for free

Former trade minister Roberto V. Ongpin or RVO was in a jovial mood when Alphaland Corp.—now back into private hands—held topping-out ceremonies Thursday last week for The Residences at Alphaland Makati Place, the residential component of upscale mixed-use Makati Place along Ayala Avenue Extension.

At the cocktail party hosted by RVO at The City Club, guests were told that Alphaland would raffle off one share in island-resort Balesin Club—the “most Googled” Philippine destination in 2013.

Guests will have to put the raffle coupon attached to the invitation at a drop box located at the showroom for The Residences, thereby drawing foot traffic. But instead of raffling off just one share of Balesin, RVO gave in to the clamor from the mostly well-heeled crowd to raffle off another share. So two lucky guests are now lucky members of Balesin Club without having to pay for their shares, each of which now costs about P4 million. They, of course, still have to pay for the monthly dues and consumables.

The Residences at Alphaland has 494 residential units each coming with a City Club share worth P1.5 million. The fully fitted residential units are selling for between P13 million and over P30 million. The smallest is a one-bedroom unit with 60 square meters while the largest will have 153 square meters and three bedrooms.

After settling its shareholder dispute with a group led by British fund Ashmore (and its new local partner Eric Recto) and succeeded in having graft charges related to Development Bank of the Philippines deals dropped at the Sandiganbayan, RVO has a few stones left unturned.

When Alphaland was involuntarily delisted by the Philippine Stock Exchange, RVO, Alphaland president Mario Oreta and corporate secretary Rodolfo Ma. Ponferrada were disqualified from becoming directors or executive officers in any company applying for listing with the exchange.

RVO is optimistic that the boardroom ban would be reconsidered by the PSE. Doris C. Dumlao

Camacho and Credit Suisse

Some local bankers and businessmen may have noticed that former finance secretary —and current Credit Suisse vice chair for Asia-Pacific—Jose Isidro Camacho has not been able to make his fortnightly visit to Manila from his Singapore home base of late.

Well, we learned that Camacho (‘Lito’ to his friends) underwent successful surgery for a condition known in medical shorthand as OPLL or ossification of the posterior longitudinal ligament. Left untreated, it basically causes the calcification of the soft tissue surrounding the spinal bones and makes movement very difficult and very painful.

In any case, we understand that the procedure was successful. Camacho is now recuperating and will be back in action soon enough.

When he gets back to work, he will find that he now has a new boss after Credit Suisse announced the appointment of Helman Sitohang as CEO of the bank’s Asia-Pacific operations, vice Eric Varvel who will now serve as the bank’s chair for Asia-Pacific and Middle East operations.

Camacho will be reporting to Sitohang, but the relationship is expected to be more of a partnership since both men worked in the defunct Bankers Trust in the 1990s.

Expect this partnership to result in higher visibility for Credit Suisse in the Philippines in the coming months. Indeed, the Swiss banking giant is already active in the investment banking and mergers-and-acquisitions scene in the country, but has chosen to keep a low profile for the most part.

Expect that strategy to change soon. Daxim L. Lucas

Speaking of which…

When the local head of Credit Suisse, Johnny Escaler, isn’t busy putting together multibillion-peso investment banking deals, he spends his time making his wine retail business grow.

Escaler is the proprietor of the Straits Wine Co., which he co-owns with Anton Periquet, Bien Tan and Mike Zalamea. And the group is organizing another edition of the successful “Philippine Wine Fiesta” on Oct. 28, dubbed as the country’s biggest wine fair.

At the event, wine lovers will be able to taste more than 100 wines, meet over 15 winemakers and explore the work of about 30 wineries under one roof. The best part? Tickets to the wine-tasting event go for only P1,200 per head while tickets to the dinner at the winemakers’ table go for P3,000 per head.

The event starts at 4 p.m. of Oct. 28 all the way until 11 in the evening at Green Sun along Chino Roces Avenue Extension in Makati City.

Incidentally, Escaler’s wine gig is right across the street from another renowned wine retailer, Premium Wine Exchange (PWX), owned and run by another set of four businessmen friends—Eric Recto, Fred Uytengsu, Jeri Jalandoni and Jojo Madrid.

Will these four gentlemen take this challenge from the other four gentlemen across from the street sitting down? Who knows. Daxim L. Lucas

3rd Bell Awards

As corporate regulators strive to raise the bar for corporate governance in the country, top-performing publicly listed companies and trading participants based on such good governance metrics will be honored by the Philippine Stock Exchange on Nov. 10 at the 3rd Bell Awards to be held at Makati Shangri-La hotel.

“The exchange has been at the forefront of corporate governance initiatives in the capital market. We hope that through our various corporate governance programs, including the PSE Bell Awards, we can encourage more companies to adopt good governance practices and strive to excel in them,” PSE president and chief executive Hans Sicat said.

The awardees will be handpicked based on their compliance with the PSE’s corporate governance guidelines and other relevant rules and regulations. The performance of trading participants, on the other hand, will be benchmarked against regulatory audits and compliance with market regulations and trading rules.

In 2013, five listed companies and six trading participants comprised the roster of PSE Bell Awardees. Doris C. Dumlao

JP Morgan’s advocacy

What is JPMorgan Chase & Co. (Philippines) up to nowadays?

Well, for one, the local unit of the US banking giant and the Financial Executives Institute of the Philippines (Finex) recently concluded the final round for the 16th Inter-Collegiate Finance Competition at the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP), which aims to raise the quality of finance education in the country, promote world-class financial education standards and improve corporate governance through early learning and mastery of finance fundamentals.

The elimination rounds were held simultaneously across several sites—Baguio for Northern Luzon, NCR for South Luzon, Cebu for Central and Eastern Visayas, Bacolod for Western Visayas, and Davao and Cagayan de Oro for Mindanao.

“This year, we gathered a record number of participants with 105 universities and colleges from all over the country. Teams answered questions patterned after the Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) Level 1 examinations—widely considered to be extremely difficult. Participants showed clear mastery on a variety of finance topics and delivered impressive responses from eliminations to finals,” said Edmundo Soriano, Finex president.

Among the 20 schools that qualified for the finals, defending champion University of the Philippines (UP) Diliman won first place for the second year in a row. Ateneo de Manila University (2nd place) and De La Salle University Dasmariñas Cavite (3rd place) rounded up this year’s top three finance competition winners. The members of the winning team from UP Diliman received scholarships worth more than $90,000 from the Asian Institute of Management and a cash prize of P100,000 from JPMorgan Chase & Co.

“JPMorgan Chase & Co. is committed to growing our business and investing in the Philippines. As one of the biggest employers of highly skilled graduates, including CFA charter holders, we encourage students to continue improving their financial knowledge and skills that would ultimately equip them to become leaders in our industry,” said Roberto Panlilio, JPMorgan Chase & Co. Philippines’ senior country officer.

BSP Governor Amando Tetangco Jr. commended the joint Finex and JPMorgan Chase & Co. Inter-Collegiate program in a message during the finals, saying that it was a step in the right direction of developing highly capable finance professionals who are also ethically and socially responsible. Daxim L. Lucas

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