Biz Buzz: PWU side deal?
If there’s one Benitez that businessman Eusebio “Yosi” Tanco still holds dear amid this tug-of-war over the Philippine Women’s University (PWU) and its basic education arm JASMS (Jose Abad Santos Memorial School), it’s Bingo Bonanza big boss-turned-legislator Alfredo “Albee” Benitez.
From the reckoning of the STI Holdings chair, it’s out of consideration for Albee (a second-termer representative of the 3rd district of Negros Occidental) that his group had taken so long—three years, to be exact—to come up with the documents and invoke its rights as an unpaid creditor in this soured PWU joint venture with the Benitezes.
Tanco told business reporters it was all very confusing now because the Benitez family itself had some factions openly fighting each other in the courts for inheritance. No, he did not know who among his clan were his enemies but was sure of having at least one ally.
“For me, [Albee] is probably the decent Benitez around,” he said.
It was also because of Albee that STI had agreed to bail out PWU in the first place, he pointed out.
For Yosi, it was lame for the Benitezes to point the finger at STI for criticisms on management or commercialization reasons since his group was only a minority in the board of trustees.
If he has any regret, it was for not insisting to put a more capable chief executive officer at the helm of PWU after putting money into the university, he said.
On Monday, STI announced the deferment of the enforcement of its “step-in” right in PWU—effectively halting its takeover for the meantime—without backing down on its declaration that the Benitezes had defaulted on their obligations.
Yosi said STI had no reason to go to court, noting that his group already had all the existing legal documents to enforce the step-in right (by ousting Benitez family members) as an unpaid and aggrieved creditor.
Yosi theorized that the Benitezes might be working on a side deal with a new investor and were pinning their hopes on the entry of this white knight.
If true, he said he hoped to get this done and over with and allow STI to collect what’s due.
“If they don’t want us as partners, we don’t want them as well,” STI president Monico Jacob added. —Doris C. Dumlao
New year’s fireworks
2015 begun with fireworks at the hotly contested CVCLaw Center.
Having vacated four floors of the CVCLaw Center in favor of the Cruz Marcelo & Tenefrancia (CMT) law firm, word is that the group of Arthur “Pancho” Villaraza—now known as Villaraza & Angangco (VA)—is again at the throats of their former partners in the wake of the reshuffling of floor spaces in the upscale Taguig City building.
According to the CMT side, Villaraza had hoped to take advantage of the long yuletide break to try to change the signage of the CVCLaw Center to “V&A Law Center.”
This was supposedly despite an agreement among all the CMT and VA partners that both sides must agree to any name change of the building.
Following this, Villaraza and the VA group supposedly ordered the cutting of utilities services to the CMT group’s floors last Monday, the first working day of the year, “endangering the health and safety of CMT lawyers and personnel,” the aggrieved party claimed.
But the CMT group also said that they had expected that something like this would happen, so they had a contingency plan in place, including having set up new extension offices to ensure that the work of servicing clients would continue.
As explained to Biz Buzz, the VA group is asserting control over the condominium corporation, which, in turn, controls the CVCLaw Center. CMT, of course, feels that the VA side is using people they previously hired to administer CVCLAW Center and harass them.
The CMT group, on the other hand, countered that controlling interest in the condominium corporation lies with the former CVCLaw office, majority interest of which is controlled by Avelino “Nonong” Cruz and Simeon Marcelo.
Going back nearly two years now, the dispute began when Villaraza found himself in the middle of a revolt led by some of his senior partners in the law office known locally as “The Firm.”
Thirty-four of the 42 associates chose to side with CMT, leaving Villaraza with eight associates.
When will the fireworks end? We have a feeling this is something that the courts will have to decide. And soon. —Daxim L. Lucas
Round two
As predicted by some pundits a few weeks ago, political forces working to derail the presidential plans of Vice President Jejomar Binay toned down their activities in December, knowing that Filipinos were too preoccupied with the holidays to pay attention to Senate investigations.
Pundits also pointed out that these same critics would also take it easy during the month of January because people would be too busy with the four-day visit of Pope Francis.
But that doesn’t mean they haven’t been preparing for another round.
Word on the street is that the next round of investigations against the Vice President is all but ready, and our sources tell us that it is about one particular business deal he entered into with another controversial business group when he was still mayor of Makati.
We’re talking of nothing less than the Alphaland City Club project that is a joint venture between the Boy Scouts of the Philippines (on whose land the development was built) and Alphaland Corp. of businessman Roberto Ongpin.
Vice President Binay, of course, is also closely tied to the Boy Scouts, having been its national president for many years.
But we’re told that the Vice President’s critics are counting on the participation of a key player in this Boy Scouts-Alphaland deal, and that is no other than former Vice Mayor Ernesto Mercado. We’re told that Mercado, himself, had a major role in getting the deal sealed.
The Senate probe is set to resume later this month, as soon as Pope Francis leaves the country, we understand.
At this point, both sides are getting ready for another slugfest. Abangan! —Daxim L. Lucas
Interesting time for whisky lovers
BizBuzz learned that a new bar called “Lit” is opening in the swanky Serendra neighborhood in Bonifacio Global City and will specialize in Japanese whisky labels.
We all know most Filipinos aren’t whisky drinkers but this could be among a new crop of bars seeking to retest that perception.
The timing is also interesting for Lit, given that the “world’s best” whisky title, according to the closely followed Jim Murray’s Whisky Bible 2015, belongs to the Yamazaki Single Malt Sherry Cask 2013, of Japanese distillery Suntory. (A lot of foreign media made a big deal of that being a major blow to Scotland’s identity).
Other Filipino business groups are spotting the whisky trend here.
Andrew Tan’s Emperador Inc., which dominates the local brandy market, acquired last year Scottish whisky-maker Whyte & Mackay Group for about P31 billion. We hear they plan to launch some of those whisky products in the Philippines in 2015.
Lit is being established by Japanese and Filipino partners, including Marco Alcantara, who’s also involved with his spouse Katrina in other restaurant ventures like Chuck’s Deli and Mesclun Bistro.
If the names are familiar to foodies, that’s because Marco is the younger sibling of Conrad, who runs the Pasto Restaurant group with wife Kay. Interestingly, the brothers are next-generation Alcantaras, part of the Alsons power conglomerate, which has yet to make any major push in the restaurant business.–Miguel Camus
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