GSIS bank sale fails anew

State-run Government Service Insurance System (GSIS) again failed to sell its 99.5-percent stake in GSIS Family Bank.

In a Sept. 4 advisory, investment bids and awards committee (Ibac) chair Severina L. Resurreccion said the committee declared the latest round of the negotiated sale of all of the pension fund’s shares in the thrift bank as a failure, but did not say why.

GSIS president and general manager Robert G. Vergara last month said they had been seeking the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas’ go-ahead for the sale.

Last July, the GSIS accepted the P502-million offer of Phindep Development Corp. to buy the bank’s controlling share, as it was the lone entity to submit a consent letter from the third party investors, the Dragon family, which holds the remaining 0.5 percent.

Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) documents showed that real estate firm Phindep is based in Kawit, Cavite— the province where the late Renato P. Dragon had served as representative to Congress. The company was registered with the SEC just last Mar. 27, with an authorized capital stock of only P1 million.

Phindep’s offer was P1-million higher than the P501-million floor price.

A series of failed bidding in recent years prompted the GSIS to try disposing of its stake in the thrift bank through a negotiated sale.

In June, Altus Capital Partners, which on its website claims to be “a Southeast Asian-based investment banking and asset management firm focused on distressed debt and special situations advisory, investment and management,” offered to buy the GSIS stake for P501 million.

However, the Ibac later announced that the documents submitted by Altus were “incomplete,” hence, “no party satisfied the requirements” during the first time that the pension fund tried to dispose of its stake in GSIS Family Bank through negotiated sale.

The sale involved 25,150,006 common shares, 48,758 preferred “A” shares, and 1.25 million preferred “C” shares.

The negotiated sale was subject to the condition that the remaining shares of GSIS Family Bank belonging to private stockholders represented by heirs of Dragon through Patricia Angeli D. Nubla will also be sold to the same buyer through a separate negotiation and agreement.