BDO Nomura trading right sold to group of lawyers

The country’s largest lender, BDO Unibank, has sold the trading right of defunct BDO Nomura Securities Inc. to a newly formed company called Wecap Inc., led by a group of lawyers.

The transaction had been approved by the board of the Philippine Stock Exchange, the local bourse said in a recent advisory.

Registered at the Securities and Exchange Commission only last January 2021, Wecap lists three directors: Job Adrian Ambrosio, Alejandre Duenas II and Marilou Tuboro, respectively the president, treasurer and corporate secretary.

Ambrosio is a partner at PJS Law and is also managing director of Flow Investments and CEO of Bioeq Energy.

Ambrosio and Duenas each own 50 percent of Wecap, based on the company’s regulatory filing.

To recall, Japanese financial services giant Nomura bowed out of the four-year-old local stock brokerage venture last year. BDO Unibank later agreed to buy Nomura’s 49-percent stake.

Following Nomura’s exit, BDO Nomura’s operations were consolidated into BDO’s main stock brokerage arm, BDO Securities Corp. The merger was executed at year-end 2020, with BDO Securities as the surviving entity.

However, BDO Nomura has its own trading right at the local bourse, which had become redundant to the operations of BDO Securities. This trading right was sold to the Wecap group.

PCIB Securities, the forerunner of BDO Nomura Securities, was one of the subsidiaries acquired by BDO decades ago when it merged with Equitable PCI Bank, the deal that paved the way for its rise as the country’s largest bank.

Any new trading participant at the local stock exchange is required to put up a minimum capital of P100 million.

—Doris Dumlao-Abadilla INQ