Biz Buzz: RVO leaves SMC, Petron

Former trade minister Robert V. Ongpin (a.k.a. RVO) is no longer up for reelection on the board of conglomerate San Miguel Corp. at the upcoming meeting this June 10 for the first time since joining as director in 2009.

RVO, who is in a legal battle with British fund Ashmore and the Philippine Stock Exchange (which has initiated delisting procedures against RVO-led property developer Alphaland Corp.), is also leaving the board of SMC-controlled Petron Corp., based on definitive information statements submitted by the two large publicly listed companies ahead of their respective stockholders’ meeting.

RVO’s nephew, Eric Recto, who was left in charge of Philippine Bank of Communications after the former’s tiff with banking regulators, is also leaving the board of SMC, but is up for reelection on the board of Petron. Both RVO and Recto joined the Petron board in 2008. Recto joined SMC in 2010.

“Too many,” Recto told Biz Buzz when asked why he and his uncle were leaving the SMC board. As the two of them step down from SMC, no replacements will be made, which means that the conglomerate will only cut down the number of directors to 15.

When asked why RVO and Recto were not up for reelection in the conglomerate, SMC president Ramon S. Ang (a.k.a. RSA) said: “They are busy with their own businesses.”

Note that long before these companies submitted board nominations for this year, there had been rumors of RVO possibly leaving the company, especially after RSA early on himself quit as director of RVO-led listed companies Alphaland and Philweb.

Industry sources said RSA and RVO—who have had a long history of alliance—remained “friends” but that given the latter’s legal obstacles, it would be better for them to part ways at this time.

Otherwise, some said that RVO’s presence in the board of SMC—which is embarking on a number of big-ticket projects—could create some overhang in the conglomerate’s fund-raising activities.

RSA is also seen walking a tightrope following the PSE’s decision to subject Alphaland to involuntary delisting for an alleged pattern of “deliberate, conscious and willful intent” to mislead the exchange and the investing public through “repeated” violations of disclosure rules. After all, a private investment arm led by RSA and the San Miguel Retirement Fund comprise the single biggest voting bloc on the PSE.

So it’s goodbye cross-directorships, for now. Doris C. Dumlao

Fifty-four days

For many central bank officials (and bankers), ending one’s career as a Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) governor is the dream goal.

Barring that, the next best thing is to end one’s career as a member of the BSP’s Monetary Board—the highest policy-making body of the country’s financial system regulator. And so it was with veteran central banker Juan de Zuñiga Jr., who was sworn in to the seven-member Monetary Board last Friday by BSP Governor Amando Tetangco Jr.

Few people are as qualified as Zuñiga for the post, given his long experience both in the private and the public sectors.

He was instrumental in the central bank’s legal victories against the leaders of the P14-billion Legacy scam in 2009 as well as BSP’s more recent success against the Banco Filipino saga that had been running since the 1980s.

Before retiring from the central bank, this Far Eastern University law graduate held the rank of deputy governor, having risen the ladder from his post as head of BSP’s Office of Special Investigation (a unit that worked closely with the Anti-Money Laundering Council).

President Aquino appointed Zuñiga to the Monetary Board to serve the remaining term of Ignacio “Toting” Bunye, who resigned early to take care of his ailing wife. The unserved term of Bunye, which is now being served by Zuñiga in the prestigious group, amounts to a grand total of… drum roll please… 54 days.

Within that period, President Aquino will have to make two more appointments to the Monetary Board: One for Zuñiga’s current post and another for the slot currently held by former trade chief and banker Peter Favila.

To would-be appointees: Start lobbying. Daxim L. Lucas

ALI’s winning formula

Save for a few exceptions, company officials tend to be very reserved when speaking to members of the local press. But they do tend to speak their mind when being interviewed by the foreign media.

And so it was with a couple of ranking officials of property giant Ayala Land Inc. who gave a rather candid interview (jawdropping, actually, if you’re used to the conglomerate’s “stick to the message” approach) to Singapore’s ‘Business Times,’ which was published last week.

In it, ALI’s chief sales and marketing executive Thomas Mirasol explained how the country’s largest real estate developer was able to leverage the absence of a state-run urban planning or development agency.

The article said: Not having to adhere to a regulatory body’s land-use blueprint has enabled it to acquire large plots of land and develop them according to its own plan and design. And as long as the developer is paying its property taxes, building financial districts to attract multinational corporations and foreign investment, and providing infrastructure and services that benefit the city, the government has no complaints.

“The fact that there is nobody in the Philippines who regulates urban planning has been great for Ayala Land because we are probably the only company there that has the scale financially to take on large plots of land,” Mirasol said.

“By developing big tracts of land, we become the government; we control and manage everything,” he added. “We are the mayors and the governors of the communities that we develop and we do not relinquish this responsibility to the government.”

“We don’t have to rely on the government very much at all,” added ALI vice president Jose Juan Jugo, who explained further that, going forward, it no longer matters to the business community who the country’s president is.

“The political impact on business each time there is a presidential election has been significantly less and less— to the point where it doesn’t matter anymore who the president is,” Jugo said. “Because business would continue to proceed and nobody on the political side would want to do anything that would upset what’s happening in business, so they tend to be quite supportive of us.”

Wow. Talk about being candid. Daxim L. Lucas

And DOTC favors…

The transportation department has been keen on the Trinoma shopping mall for a common station for MRT-3 and LRT-1 in Quezon City. And why not? With an estimated P1.4-billion price tag, this gives the Ayala-owned location a P1-billion savings advantage over Henry Sy’s SM North Edsa just across from the street.

But what if the savings were not as significant as what the transportation department claims? This seems to be the case as a pro-SM source with direct knowledge told Biz Buzz that “there is no such thing as that P1 billion in savings.”

So while it may be true that the Trinoma location has a cost advantage in terms of linking the MRT-3 and LRT-1 elevated railways, the P1.4 billion computation apparently did not include a third station for the MRT-7, the source said. (MRT-7, backed by San Miguel Corp., has bogged down due to delays in the release of certain financial guarantees from the finance department. That’s another interesting story.).

The claim now is that the SM location costs more because all three stations are included in the cost assumption. The implication here is that comparing any savings between both locations is like comparing apples… with any other kind of fruit.

We’re told an official memo on the common station, which will be part of the P65-billion LRT-1 expansion and operations public private partnership deal, has yet to be released as of last week. But with issues like these still floating around, we suspect the matter is far from over. Miguel R. Camus

The apprentice

Jonathan Yabut, the Filipino winner of reality TV show “The Apprentice Asia,” will make his local media debut this week as part of the team of Tony Fernandes, the big boss of Malaysian budget carrier AirAsia.

Yabut, now based in Kuala Lumpur as Fernandes’ chief of staff, was initially hired by the Malaysian billionaire as the chief marketing officer for AirAsia Zest in the Philippines but was reassigned to head office.

Tomorrow, Yabut will grace the launch of the partnership between AirAsia’s mileage program BIG with Bank of the Philippine Island. This partnership allows BPI cardholders to book low airfare and hotel accommodation at travel destinations by converting their reward points to Air Asia BIG points. Doris C. Dumlao

Vetiver billboard

Japanese personal care brand Shokubutsu’s shampoo product Hana (which claims to use 100-percent all-natural ingredients) was recently brought to the local market with a novel environmental campaign that has caught some media fancy. Hana commissioned the putting up of the first-of-its-kind water billboard along the murky Estero San Miguel in Sampaloc, Manila, that says in all caps, “Clean river soon.”

The floating billboard—a collaboration between Vetiver Farms Philippines led by bioengineering expert Noah Manarang and ad agency TBWA/SMP—was created out of vetiver, a perennial, non-invasive grass often used to treat wastewater and stabilize landfills and garbage dumpsites. The plant can tolerate high levels of nitrates, phosphates and heavy metals, absorb toxic materials and help reduce pollution and prevent soil erosion.

Although the billboard itself can’t bring back the estero to pristine conditions, the goal is to create environmental awareness.

Vetiver Farms is the company tapped by Philex Mining to help clean the water spill from Padcal as well as a number of big property developers like Ayala Land to stabilize slopes as well as industrial giants like San Miguel Corp. and Asia Brewery to manage wastewater.

The floating billboard made of vetiver was put up last February and is expected to be an advertising entry to the 2014 Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity. Doris C. Dumlao

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