PT&T gets go-signal to exit corporate rehabilitation

THE Philippine Telegraph and Telephone Corp. (PT&T) said a Makati Regional Trial Court (RTC) granted its request to exit from court-assisted corporate rehabilitation, giving a boost to its plan to participate in the bidding for the third telecommunications player.

In a disclosure to the stock exchange, PT&T said the Rehabilitation Court, or Makati RTC Branch 66, has allowed its exit from rehabilitation “subject to compliance with certain requirements in line with the approved rehabilitation plan.”

The company said it is willing to follow its rehabilitation plan, which includes conducting a stockholders’ meeting to increase its authorized capital stock and to pay its debts via debt-to-equity conversion.

PT&T has a case in the Supreme Court concerning its P8.8-billion debt, and is supposed to undergo a 14-year rehabilitation plan.

“The exit from rehab is well within the plan of our new shareholders and another proof point that PT&T is serious in it’s intention to be a major player in the Philippines telecommunications industry,” PT&T president and chief executive officer James G. Velasquez said in a statement last week.

The telco, which was once PLDT, Inc.’s biggest rival in the industry, has expressed its interest to participate in the government’s search for the socalled “third telco player.”

In March, PT&T signed an agreement with state-owned National Transmission Corp. (TransCo) to allow for the use of the government’s national fiber optic backbone facility. —