San Miguel president Ramon S. Ang. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO / LEO M. SABANGAN II
Tycoon Ramon S. Ang is interested to bid for state-run Intercontinental Broad-casting Corp. (IBC-13), which the government Monday said it would sell at a floor price of P1.977 billion.
Ang told the Inquirer that he would join the bidding for the cash-strapped television network once it was placed on the auction block. Ang is president of San Miguel Corp., but his potential participation would likely be done on a personal capacity.
Ang had sought out media assets in the past. In 2014, Ang said he was in talks with the owners of GMA Network Inc. on the acquisition of a minority stake. The negotiations, however, collapsed in the middle of last year as “deal-breaking” disagreements erupted between both camps.
A spokesperson for Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co., which controls TV5 and had previously expressed interest in IBC-13, said they were “not interested” to bid for the state TV network.
GMA chair and chief executive Felipe Gozon also said they were not interested to bid.
An official of ABS-CBN Corp. did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The Governance Commission for GOCCs (GCG) said President Aquino already approved the privatization of IBC-13, which the GCG had recommended. The privatization will be implemented by a committee to be comprised of representatives from IBC-13, the GCG and the Presidential Communications Operations Office (PCOO).
Asked about the timetable for the privatization, presidential spokesperson and PCOO chief Herminio Coloma Jr. only said they “will prepare a media statement.”
“The privatization rationalizes the state’s portfolio in the communications sector in view of the overlap with PTV-4 [People’s Television Network Inc.], which is already sufficient to address market failures in the private broadcast industry such as providing programs with social value but are not considered profitable,” the GCG explained. At present, the government runs both IBC-13 and PTV-4.