PNB president suffers stroke

MANILA, Philippines—Philippine National Bank has recalled its former president Omar Byron Mier back to office, in an acting capacity, after the incumbent president, Carlos Pedrosa, suffered a stroke on Sunday.

In a disclosure to the Philippine Stock Exchange, PNB corporate secretary Doris Te said that the bank’s board of directors had named Mier acting president, noting that Pedrosa had gone on “indefinite sick leave.”

No other details were disclosed but PNB sources told the Inquirer that the 67-year-old Pedrosa suffered a “massive stroke” on Sunday and was now confined at the Manila Doctors Hospital in Manila. Bank officials were praying for Pedrosa’s recovery, the sources said.

Pedrosa assumed the PNB presidency one year ago, taking over the post vacated by Eugene Acevedo, who has since then joined Union Bank of the Philippines.

Mier, for his part, is no stranger to PNB, having served as its president from 2005 to 2010 as the predecessor of Acevedo. Mier has been involved in various companies under the group of tycoon Lucio Tan and played a key role in the creditor-driven corporate rehabilitation of Victorias Milling Co.

Before joining the Lucio Tan group, Mier was deputy general manager of Deutsche Bank, Manila (1995 to 2001) and worked with Citibank N.A. based in Manila and Malaysia for over two decades.

Pedrosa has more than 30 years of banking experience that started in 1964 in a foreign bank in Barcelona, Spain, where he was a foreign exchange trader and eventually headed the private banking department. After a four-year stint overseas, he joined Metropolitan Bank and Trust Co. where he rose from the ranks and headed various operations such as domestic and international operations, treasury, credit, domestic subsidiaries, overseas branches and merchant banking.

The banker was afterwards named by Bank of Tokyo as its nominee to the board of directors of Pilipinas Bank and subsequently appointed as the local bank’s CEO from 1993 to 1997. He also became president of First e-Bank from 2000 to 2003 and later served as director of United Coconut Planters Bank (2004-2006) and Metrobank (2008-2009).

Pedrosa  also served in different corporations in various capacities over the years: Toyota Motor Philippines (vice chair), Philippine AXA Life Insurance Corp. (chair); Global Power Corp. (executive director); QSpan Technologies (executive director) and Pilipino Telephone Corp. (director).