Biz Buzz: Resort club intruders

Security procedures at this residential resort club in Tagaytay are now under scrutiny after armed robbers were able to lurk around its rolling terrain recently.

Three weeks ago, what was envisioned to be a girls’ night out turned out to be a horrifying experience when a group of armed men crashed a party hosted by one homeowner and declared a robbery.

Catching the ladies (there were eight of them) by surprise, the masked men appeared out of nowhere shortly after the group arrived at the vacation house one early Friday evening. The men grabbed their jewelry, cash and electronic gadgets like iPads, cell phones and a MacBook, even demanding for the chargers. One intruder even asked who among the ladies was still single, sending shivers down the spine of everyone in the room.

The only details the victims could remember about the intruders—believed to be in their 20s and 30s—were that they were “sweaty” and “smelly.” It also appeared that these men arrived at the location—and fled from it—on foot. They disappeared into the darkness as easily as they arrived.

Fortunately, none of the ladies were harmed although all of them remained traumatized by the incident to this day.

Which resort? Clue: It’s NOT Highlands.—Doris C. Dumlao

Yosi’s buying

STI Education Systems Holdings Inc. may be selling shares to the public but its controlling stockholder, businessman and stock broker Eusebio “Yosi” Tanco—instead of selling some secondary shares as part of the offering—is himself subscribing to the issue, underwriters announced during last week’s local road show.

It’s a sign of Yosi’s solid support and a subliminal assurance that he won’t let the stock down. But owners of companies going public do not announce their intention to subscribe to their own public offering (but usually are ready to support if needed).

So how much is Yosi willing to take up? Based on the offering prospectus, the STI chair has “undertaken” to UBS Investments Philippines the purchase on a “firm basis” of 200 million shares through Venture Securities. At the offer price of P0.90, this suggests a P180-million personal commitment from the chair. The firm undertaking accounts for 36 percent of the domestic offer of 546.44 million shares, which only accounts for about a fifth of the total offer size.

“But he does not want to give me shares,” Tanco said, pointing to UBS Philippines managing director Lauro Baja.—Doris C. Dumlao

NYC marathon

Like in previous years, several business leaders are flying to the Big Apple to join the popular ING New York Marathon on November 4.

The Philippine contingent will include Ayala Corp. president Fernando Zobel de Ayala, Bank of the Philippine Islands head of Odyssey Funds Paul Joseph Garcia, Banco de Oro chief investment officer Marvin Fausto and Philippine Equity Partners executive director Jojo Madrid.

They will be among the 38,000 marathon participants who will traverse each of New York’s five boroughs: Brooklyn, Queens, Bronx, Manhattan and Staten Island.

Sun Life Philippines president Riza Mantaring, who ran the NYC Marathon last year and the Berlin marathon only last month, is taking a break from the NYC run this year as she’s nursing an injury from the recent Ironman Triathlon in Cebu.—Doris C. Dumlao

Doods and don’ts in bank deals

Former Optical Media Board chair and now TV5 program host Edu Manzano has several million reasons to be grumpy these days, no thanks to one bank he dealt with. The source of Dood’s uncharacteristic mood swing can be attributed to his discovery that the high-end condo unit he purchased a few years ago had been mortgaged for a P7.5-million loan by this certain bank to the Bangko Sentral since 2002.

Why this important information was not annotated in the actor’s copy of the condo title, which is SOP, is the mystery that Edu is trying to unravel. He feels that some people at the bank are trying to pull a fast one on him.

Edu’s woes started when he put up his unit at Renaissance Center Platinum 3000 along Meralco Ave. in Pasig City on the selling block a few months ago. Only when a buyer, accompanied by his daughter and son-in-law, turned up at the bank with a manager’s check, was the problem uncovered.  Upon close scrutiny, it was found out that the bank’s copy of the title had a caveat emptor, that Edu’s condo was a mortgaged property.

A witness to the confrontation between real estate developer Tentra Inc., Edu’s broker Grace San Diego, the ready-to-pay buyer and embarrassed officials of the bank at its executive office in the Ortigas area, said the bankers could give no credible explanation for the mess.

The condo unit was originally acquired from the bank by Tentra Inc. in 2003, a year after it was mortgaged by the bank to the BSP. What is baffling is why the bank kept silent on the Bangko Sentral loan and why the title given to Tentra was immaculately clean. It was the unknowing property developer that later sold the unit to Edu.

Confronted with the problem, bank executives could only come up with excuses like, “the annotation was inserted at the back of the title only in 2005,” that “the VP in charge of the account was new on the job” and that “the BSP was already paid in July this year”—all of which have failed to impress Tentra, Edu and the buyer.

Which bank is this? Clue: it is currently chaired by a former Erap administration Cabinet official, and the conglomerate that acquired it from its former owner in 2008 had a massive cleanup job to do.—Daxim L. Lucas

That Alphard ‘coincidence’

Some coincidences are just too interesting to ignore. Take this certain infrastructure firm with a foreign parent firm, which recently acquired four Toyota Alphard MPVs.

The Alphard, of course, is Toyota’s luxury minivan, which can be described as the high-end cousin of its popular Hi-Ace van. And high-end it certainly is, with a tag price close to P3 million each. All four Alphards bought by the infrastructure firm were colored Pearl White, we were told.

A certain Cabinet secretary, said to be in good terms with this infrastructure firm, also has a new white Alphard—but it’s probably just a coincidence along the straight and narrow path.—Daxim L. Lucas

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