BIZ BUZZ: New luxury car market player

One of the world’s leading distributors of top automotive brands is reportedly eyeing a slice of the fast-growing Philippine car market through a strategic partnership with a well-known local distributor of high-end vehicles.

For several weeks now, the local automotive scene has been abuzz with rumors that this local distributor has been in talks with several “suitors” who have taken a keen interest in the Philippines.

While details remain scarce, several sources told Biz Buzz that the new investor is a Europe-based multi-brand luxury car distributor known for its global network. Seeing the potential for further growth in the Philippines, the company will reportedly take a significant stake in the local company and help take it to the next level.

As for the firm’s original owners, Biz Buzz learned that they will continue to be part of the firm, albeit in a more relaxed role.

This new partnership will bring in new and more exciting models and spur greater competition in the local luxury car segment. Who are we talking about? The cat will officially be let out of the bag this week. Abangan!

—Daxim L. Lucas

Blacklisted supplier

Four of the country’s largest electricity producers have virtually blacklisted a known multinational company that they claim has served them poorly in the past years, keeping them from producing electricity and generating revenues.

And for consumers, that also meant more “yellow alerts” or thin power supply in some areas and outages in others.

Indeed, these four companies have been comparing notes of late and are exploring the possibility or writing the multinational company’s head office in New York to formally complain and even warn of a potential filing for arbitration.

These are some of the text/Viber messages they exchanged among themselves: “Generally expensive for services and spare parts … Very long delivery lead time of critical parts … Wrong delivery of purchased or ordered items … Every inquiry is for a fee before response … Wrong assessment! … Very poor and lousy original equipment manufacturer support! …

There’s more: “Poor performance … Unscheduled shutdowns … Poor service to the extent that we had to buy a new turbine …” Multinational company “not able to complete its proposed services on time … Asked for additional fees to complete its work, so the generating unit is on extended downtime … For more than two years, refused to do a root-cause analysis and insisted on band-aid measures that did not work … We lost billions in opportunity cost not counting putting the national supply at risk … We had to buy new equipment from a Japanese supplier …”

Lawyers are now studying the filing of a local class suit by affected consumers, especially if summer power outages occur.

—Tina Arceo-Dumlao INQ

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