Tan grandsons take over top posts at MacroAsia

Lucio Tan’s MacroAsia Corp. announced a leadership shakeup on Monday following the sudden retirement of its president and chief operating officer, Joseph Chua, Tan’s son-in-law and the aviation services firm’s top manager and director for over two decades.

In a stock exchange filing, MacroAsia said its board of directors accepted Chua’s retirement during a special board meeting on Oct. 8 while appointing Tan’s grandchildren to take over his roles.

The board named Eduardo Luis Luy, MacroAsia’s treasurer and director since Dec. 12, 2019, as the new president and COO. Kyle Ellis Tan will take over his cousin’s post as treasurer and Chua’s seat on the board.

The board meeting came days after the Tan Group issued a public notice severing corporate ties with Chua—hinting at a falling out between Tan and his son-in-law.

Nevertheless, the board thanked Chua for growing the company “from a small business making only two million pesos to a company that makes more than a billion pesos of profit before the pandemic hit.”

“Mr. Johnip Cua, the chair of the audit committee, commended Mr. Joseph Chua for managing the corporation with integrity, with clean audit findings from our external auditors year after year,” the company said in its filing.

Chua was president and COO of MacroAsia since 2015 and previously its CEO since 2003. He was a member of a board since 1997.

Chua is also a director of PAL Holdings Inc., the listed parent firm of Tan-controlled Philippine Airlines.

PAL Holdings disclosed it would elect a new set of directors in their upcoming annual stockholders’ meeting on Nov. 25 this year.

Under Chua’s leadership, MarcoAsia grew to become one of the country’s largest providers of aircraft ground handling and other allied servies.

Its core subsidiaries include MacroAsia Catering Services Inc. MacroAsia Airport Services Corp., MacroAsia Properties Development Corp., MacroAsia Air Taxi Services Inc. and First Aviation Academy.

With the Lufthansa Group, MarcoAsia owns Lufthansa Technik Philippines Inc., which provides maintenance services to airlines around the world.

Prior to the pandemic, Chua sought to diversify MacroAsia’s business by joining forces with state-run China Communications Construction Co. Ltd. to build the first phase of the P500- billion Sangley Point International Airport project in Cavite.

Last January, the project award was scrapped by the Cavite government due to delays in their submission of requirements, governor Jonvic Remulla had said.