THE backdoor attempt by Philtrust to enter the Philippine Bank of Communications was thwarted last week after its two nominees were blocked from being elected to the PBCom board.

 

According to the grapevine, Manila Hotel president, former Senator Jose Lina Jr., and lawyer Francis Gaw were supposed to have been elected to the PBCom board, hand-in-hand with the resignations of directors Johnny Cobankiat and Edwin Chugunco, who respectively represent the Nubla and Chung families in PBCom.

Gaw happens to be a son-in-law of Manila Hotel owner Emilio Yap, whose Philtrust Bank gave the Luys up to today to accept a general tender offer as the Chungs and the Nublas already had.

But the planned election never got past the agenda after the Luy bloc objected, apparently with the tacit approval of the PDIC nominees in the PBCom board led by president Roman Azanza, arguing that directors may only be elected during a shareholders’ meeting.

With the Philtrust nominees blocked, Chugunco and Cobankiat immediately informed the PBCom board that they were withdrawing their resignation offers.

Philtrust had pushed for the election of their two nominees ahead of the expiration today of their general tender offer to acquire PBCom, amid the recalcitrance of the Luys, who are related by affinity to Yap nemesis, taipan Lucio Tan.

With the expiration of the  tender offer and the threat from the Luys to sue not only Philtrust and the two other families but the PDIC as well, acting PDIC president Michael Osmeña now wants to call the three families who each own a third of PBCom to a private meeting to discuss a possible tripartite sale, as had been stipulated all along in the PDIC rehabilitation package to the medium-sized bank.

To preclude a similar corporate subterfuge, the PDIC, according to the grapevine, now wants to call and supervise a public bidding for the unified block, instead of each shareholding group trying to broker and find a buyer, only to be scuttled by another shareholding family