Biz Buzz: Highlander vs islander

This year’s Hungry Ghosts Festival—traditionally a bad time for superstitious stock market investors—doesn’t begin until mid-August, but it certainly came early for at least one high-profile businessman.

This businessman (whom we shall call Mr. Islander) owned about 250 million shares of publicly listed Premium Leisure Corp. (PLC) dating back to the 1990’s when the company was still called Sinophil.

But after two decades of dormancy, Sinophil suddenly came to life when its owners decided to use it as a backdoor listing vehicle for gaming interests that now include the new and swanky City of Dreams gaming resort in Pagcor City.

Back when it was started, Sinophil’s original shareholders came in at a price of P1.40 apiece. The share price dropped to single-digit centavo levels for about 20 years in the wake of the East Asian financial crisis, but shot back up to P1.40 per share (and beyond) after the backdoor listing.

And here’s where things get interesting. From June 9 to July 9, the price of gaming stocks around the region—including those in the Philippines—dropped sharply due to a confluence of events like the sudden crackdown by Chinese authorities on their gaming market, the Greek financial crisis, and then the Chinese stock rout recently.

Local stocks like those of Bloomberry Resources, Travellers International and PLC all declined. In the middle of this gaming stock rout, Mr. Islander enters the scene, selling a chunk of his PLC stock holdings everyday, to the surprise of other stockholders who have seen him hold on to his shares during worse times.

What could be the reason for his heavy selling, further pushing the share price of PLC down, they wondered. As it was, PLC’s share price was already declining by itself, but Mr. Islander’s selling only made it worse.

From about P1.60 per share, Mr. Islander’s selling pushed down PLC’s share price to a low of P1.16 (with the bulk being sold at about P1.20, we hear).

Enter Mr. Islander’s longtime rival (whom we shall call Mr. Highlander). All throughout the selling spree, Mr. Highlander was watching with interest, and decided to buy as much of Mr. Islander’s shares as he could as the latter sold the stock down.

Puzzled, Mr. Highlander’s friends asked him: “Are you sure about this?” Mr. Highlander replied: “As sure as day follows night, that stock will rise once he’s done selling.”

And what do you know? In a span of two and a half weeks after Mr. Islander stopped selling, PLC’s share price recovered to the P1.60 region.

The loser: Mr. Islander, who had to swallow an opportunity loss of about P100 million in his haste to dispose of his PLC shares. The winner: Mr. Highlander who, just two weeks after the stock bottomed, is now P100 million or so richer after picking up his business rival’s shares.

Well, you win some, you lose some—or in the case of these two gentlemen, a lot. Daxim L. Lucas

PH’s priciest apartment

TWO years after a record-breaking sale of a residential condo unit in BGC, Ayala Land Premier has outdone itself by selling an uber luxurious penthouse unit at newly launched West Gallery Place project for P234 million.

For this amount, one can already build a modest 10-story building, a big supermarket or buy a majority stake in a shell company at the local exchange.

So how will a P234-million apartment (which will be turned over by early 2022) look like? The anonymous buyer of this one-of-its-kind spacious unit at West Gallery called Skyrise 49—named after the topmost level of the building it occupies exclusively—will have an indoor space of 832 square meters (sqms), plus an expansive outdoor deck and its own lap pool (for outdoor space of about 600 sqms). The unit will have a four-meter high ceiling in the living and dining areas and offer an unobstructed view of the Metro Manila skyline.

Skyrise 49 has thus eclipsed the previous record in condo pricing made by a similarly-sized penthouse residence at West Gallery ’s sibling tower, East Gallery. That premium unit called Skyrise 1400, a five-bedroom residence with a 25-meter lap pool and garden deck all encompassing about 1,400 sqms, fetched P200 million two years ago.

“The more special the unit is, meaning the more pricey it is, the more selective the market becomes because not everybody can afford an entire floor,” ALP managing director Jose Juan Jugo told business reporters on Tuesday. During priority selling events, these are the first ones to go, he said.

With so much cash floating in the financial system, not even talks of a big earthquake due anytime soon could curb appetite for premium property. “People are just more cognizant now in seeking assurance that the buildings are compliant (with the building code),” Jugo said. Doris Dumlao-Abadilla

Another day, another award

LONGTIME corporate chieftains like Manuel V. Pangilinan must be so used to getting business awards, and it looks like he bagged another one.

Biz Buzz learned that Pangilinan, known in business circles by his catchy initials MVP, was conferred the prestigious 2015 Ramon V. del Rosario Sr. Award for Nation Building.

As the name suggests, the award, annually presented by JCI Manila and the Asian Institute of Management RVR Center for Corporate Responsibility, recognizes individuals for their “outstanding contributions to nation-building and exemplary corporate citizenship.”

Like other successful businessmen, Pangilinan’s origin story has already passed into lore.

After his stint at Philippine Investment Management Inc., he left Manila for Hong Kong to work as an investment banker before starting the First Pacific Group in 1981 with Indonesian partner Anthoni Salim, who he met during their days at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School.

A string of bold investment deals started, with First Pacific—thanks to Pangilinan—focusing heavily on developing infrastructure in the Philippines.

Today, people know Pangilinan as the chair of Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. and a host of other corporations, including the Philippines’s biggest gold miner Philex Mining Corp. and its largest electricity retailer, Manila Electric Co.

Pangilinan-led Metro Pacific Investments also owns or operates a number of recognizable assets, like North Luzon Expressway, Maynilad Water Services Inc. and hospitals such as the Makati Medical Center and Davao Doctors Hospital.

Outside of business, he remains a prominent patron of sports, where he has heavily invested both personal time and money, and was recently elected to the Fiba Central Board. His foundations include PLDT-Smart Foundation, Philippine Business for Social Progress and IdeaSpace Foundation.

Pangilinan joins other prominent recipients, which include Jaime Zobel de Ayala, Vicente Paterno, Washington Sycip, Oscar Lopez, Amb. Jesus Tambunting and Senen Bacani. Miguel R. Camus

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