Court denies Philrealty plea for rehab termination

With debts down to only P100M, firm eyes exit in ’13

PHILIPPINE Realty and Holdings Corp. is not exiting court-assisted corporate rehabilitation anytime soon due to its remaining obligations.

The company is, however, set to fully settle its remaining liabilities—which is now only about P100 million— in 2013 to pave the way for its exit from the rehab proceedings in the same year.

Philrealty disclosed late Monday that the Quezon City Regional Trial Court branch 93 had denied its motion to terminate the rehabilitation proceedings. Philrealty quoted the court ruling as saying that the company still had a “substantial” amount of obligations to pay in accordance with the court-approved rehabilitation plan. Thus, it said, the termination should be “deferred” until the company had fully settled its obligations.

In an interview, Philrealty president Amador Bacani said the remaining obligations referred to by the court amounted to more than P100 million.

Bacani said notwithstanding the recent court ruling, Philrealty was expecting to terminate the court-assisted rehabilitation by next year as the remaining obligations would have been settled by then. He said this ruling only deferred the company’s exit from rehabilitation pending the settlement of the residual obligations.

“We will submit a payment schedule which the receiver will evaluate,” Bacani said.

“I think one year should be sufficient (to complete everything) because the amount involved is not as big as what we had before we went into rehab,” Bacani said.

When Philrealty was placed under court-assisted rehabilitation in the early 2000s, Bacani said its outstanding bank loans, excluding accrued interest, had amounted to P2 billion. Including interest, this was about P3 billion.

The remaining liabilities of about P100 million, Bacani said, had arisen from cases that Philrealty had lost in court.

During its recent stockholders meeting, Philrealty has unveiled plans to pursue more property projects, includ- ing a prime mixed-use development in Bonifacio Global City. For instance, it expects to sign within this year a memorandum of understanding with its principal stockholder, Greenhills Properties Inc., to develop the latter's 6,400-square meter lot fronting BGC's 5th Avenue.

After completing the first building, Skyline Tower in Andrea North, Philrealty plans to bring to the property market early next year the second tower, Sky Breeze, which will offer 278 units in 31 floors and targeted for delivery to buyers by mid-2015. The company is expecting to generate P2 billion in sales from the second tower.