Ongpin to donate 49% stake in Philweb to Pagcor

Businessman Roberto V. Ongpin has offered to donate a 49 percent stake in gaming technology service provider Philweb Corp. to the state-owned Philippine Amusement & Gaming Corp. (Pagcor) as a last-ditch attempt to preserve the nationwide e-Games network.

Ongpin has also offered to donate another 4.7 percent stake in Philweb to the Ateneo de Manila University JVO (Jaime V. Ongpin) Scholarship Fund, the businessman said in a letter addressed to Pagcor chief executive officer Andrea Domingo and the Pagcor board dated Aug. 17.

As of Wednesday’s noontime deadline on the auction for his 53.76 percent stake in Philweb, Ongpin said he had received five bids for these 771 million shares.

“However, due to the reports in the media that under no circumstances will the Philweb license be renewed, I have decided that it is not appropriate, nor fair to the bidders for me to award my shares to any of the bidders,” Ongpin said.

“As you know, the bid is contingent on the renewal by Pagcor of Philweb’s license and the reports in the media that the license will not be renewed under any circumstances render the auction process moot and academic.”

The donation to Pagcor was thus cited as “a final attempt to save the jobs of about 700 Philweb employees, plus about 5,000 others who are employed by the Pagcor operators in 286 e-Games sites.”

“Why 49 percent? This is simply to avoid Philweb being classified as a government-owned and -controlled corporation (GOCC), which would make various restrictions applicable to GOCCs result in making Philweb’s operations untenable,” Ongpin said.

Philweb was valued by the stock market at P10.77 billion as of Wednesday’s close. This means that Ongpin’s 53.76 percent stake was worth about P5.8 billion.

As Pagcor was both a regulator and operator – in fact operating several casinos all over the country – Ongpin said there was no reason why Pagcor could not come in as the largest shareholder of Philweb.

“I also wish to point out that this donation to Pagcor comes with no strings attached,” Ongpin said. “Thus, Pagcor can decide whether to retain it as a permanent invest or auction all or part of it off to the highest bidder,” Ongpin said.