Vallacar Transit to sue rogue Yanson sibling over P380-million debt

MANILA, Philippines — The directors of Vallacar Transit Inc. this week ordered the lawyers of the country’s largest bus transport firm to recommend possible legal action against Ma. Lourdes Celina Yanson-Lopez – one of the four siblings behind a foiled boardroom coup last month – over her alleged P380-million outstanding obligation to the company.

The amount was based on a report from SGV and on the results of the cash, property, and asset inventory audit, including documents at the Bacolod’s main office and south terminal, according to a statement from the family’s lawyer Jun Maxell Orlina.

Orlina said stockholders of Vallacar Transit also elected a new set of board of directors, which subsequently reelected Leo Rey Yanson as the president of the company.

In a special stockholders meeting at the company’s main office in Mansilingan, Bacolod City, Yanson matriarch Olivia V. Yanson, Leo Rey, Ginnette Yanson-Dumancas, and Charles Dumancas were elected as members of the revamped board of directors.

Vallacar Transit, is the largest subsidiary of the Yanson Group of Bus Companies and is the company behind Ceres Liner and Sugbo Transit.

The Yanson Group, the parent company, is one of the largest bus conglomerates in Southeast Asia which operates more than 4,000 buses nationwide. Established in 1968, the 52-year-old conglomerate founded by the late family patriarch Ricardo Yanson Sr. 

It now has a total of 18,000 employees who provide transport services to 700,000 passengers daily. It has 15 bases of operations in the cities of Bacolod, Iloilo, Dumaguete, Cebu, Cagayan De Oro, Butuan, Davao, Pagadian, Dipolog, Bohol, and Batangas.

A boardroom battle began early last month when four Yanson siblings called a special board meeting and unseated Leo Rey Yanson as the president of Vallacar Transit Inc.  Leo Rey was subsequently replaced by his eldest brother Roy Yanson.

The special stockholders meeting earlier this week – held after the original management retook control of the company’s headquarters – effectively re-affirmed Leo Rey Yanson as the rightful president of Vallacar Transit.