Biz Buzz: Will ‘Tonyboy’ come to the rescue of Okada?
The country’s newest integrated resort, Okada Manila, has been on a rough ride amid a shareholder squabble—with the group backed by chair Kazuo Okada on one side and, on the other, the group that ousted the Japanese magnate: The guys running the show at Universal Entertainment of Japan and the local unit Tiger Resorts Leisure and Entertainment Inc.
From what we hear, Okada Manila has been having problems meeting its obligations to vendors and suppliers. As plans to list through the backdoor using Asiabest Group International (ABG) face legal challenges, there have been talks about the sale of certain real estate assets.
But in the coming weeks, we hear that some cash is coming in as Kazuo Okada’s rivals have tapped some credit facility backed
by shares of stocks. This is much needed to keep the operations at Pagcor Entertainment City afloat.
Amid all the brouhaha, however, people wonder: Where does the local partner Antonio “Tony
boy” Cojuangco stand? For months, he has kept out of the limelight, apparently attempting to stay neutral, but we hear that he may soon pick a side.
From all indications, the ousted Japanese tycoon may find an ally in Cojuangco. As KazuoOkada prepares for a future comeback, stop the ABGdeal and keep the real estate assets of Okada Manila intact, Cojuangco may just join the crusade. —DORISDUMLAO-ABADILLA There is no contest: The Zobel
family is now the most awarded clan when it comes to the country’s top management award after Ayala Corp. president and COO
Fernando Zobel de Ayala was honored yesterday as management man of the year by the Management Association of the Philippines.
Most awarded
That makes Fernando the third Zobel to receive the prestigious award after his older brother, Jaime Augusto, whowas given the same honor in 2006, and their father, Don Jaime, in 1987.
That’s three awardees from a single family, but the concentration of awards—which has been given 42 times since 1967—becomes even more pronounced when one counts the other members of the 180-plus-yearold Ayala conglomerate who have been honored by the group.
That includes former Bank of the Philippine Islands president
Aurelio Montinola III (2012), former Ayala Land president An
tonino Aquino (2009), former energy secretary, AC Capital and Manila Water CEO Delfin Lazaro (1999) and several other awardees who served on various boards of Ayala firms.
Other families who had two awardees include the country’s wealthiest, the Sys, with patriarch
Henry Sy Sr. receiving the award in 1999 and daughter Teresita Sy
Coson in 2016; and the Del Rosar- ios of Phinma, whose founder Ramon Sr. was honored in 1988 while his son Ramon Jr. received it in 2010. Siblings Cesar Buenaventura and the late Rafael “Paeng” Buenaventura were also honorees, the former in 1985 and the latter in 2004. Then there’s the other kind of “family” that the MAP honors: The small family of executives who have run the country’s central bank—the late Jose B. Fernandez in 1989, the late Gabriel Singson in 1998, Buenaventura in 2004, Jose Cuisia Jr. in 2007 and Amando Tetangco Jr. in 2015. Of course, given how dynamic the current generation of business leaders are nowadays, it will not be surprising to see children of former honorees receiving the same plum a few years down the road. Management Man of the Year Lance Gokongwei or Arthur or Alfred Ty perhaps? Abangan. —DAXIML. LUCAS Doubling down on digital The Go kong wei family’ s Summit Media is doubling down in its bid to conquer the digital space.
Once the biggest magazine publisher in the country, Summit Media recently ended the print editions of popular brands such as FHM, Cosmo and Top Gear, preferring to go full blast on their online presence.
With its shift to a “digital first company,” Summit Media led a $1.2-million investment in mobile app Kumu, a livestream and content platform. This comes after Summit Media CEO Lisa Gokongwei-Cheng made a personal angel investment in Kumu.
For the group, the investment is strategic since it deals with content.
The business opportunity is also vast. Summit Media noted that Kumu, which was established in 2017, now has more than 100,000 users and has been named the No. 1 trending app in the Google Play Store 10 times. User growth is in the double-digit realm month-on-month. Kumu is available on both Android and iOS devices.
Ultimately, Summit Media sees the platform as attractive for brands seeking to diversify their audience. These tie-ups could take the form of prizes in Kumu’s in-house shows or sponsoring of live streamers, to name a few.
“Our investment in Kumu is an important addition to our portfolio. We are committed to investing in the future of media, as we are cognizant of our audiences’ rapidly changing needs,” said Gokongwei-Cheng.
The Gokongweis are not alone in this venture. Kumu has lured other investors such as FOXMONT Capital Partners; Two Culture Capital and Jove Schrottmann of Mandala Spa Boracay. —MIGUELR. CAMUS
More questions than answers
It seems the bidding for the 25-year operations and maintenance (O&M) contract of the Clark International Airport (CIA) in Mabalacat, Pampanga, has gotten curiouser and curiouser.
Two weeks ago, Biz Buzz revealed what one of the interested parties
claimed there were irregularities: A series of delays and the questionable disqualification of bidders.
Supposedly, the Bases Conversion Development Authority (BCDA) imposed a number of requirements for any consortia to meet to be able to participate in the bidding. However, one of the interested firms now says BCDA “adjusted” the requirements at the last minute without reason or justification to narrow the competition and improve the chances of a favored bidder.
Unsurprisingly, the BCDA announced that it had received only two bids: One from the consortium comprising Filinvest, JG Summit and Changi Airport Philippines (CAP), and the other from Angkasa Pura 2 of Indonesia and Globalport.
During the Pre-Bid Conference, BCDAhad originally set the deadline for bid submission on July 20, 2018. However, in a subsequent bulletin, it was moved to Aug. 20. On Aug. 8, BCDA announced that they would move the deadline to Sept. 4. Later, it was again extended to Oct. 30.
Just days before that deadline, BCDA then announced that they would move the bid submission date to Nov. 5, despite releasing the concession agreement only on Oct. 30. On Nov. 4, however, BCDA once again announced that it would postpone the deadline to Nov. 9, at which date it was announced that only two bidders were able to submit. This brings the total number of extensions to five.
Throughout this series of postponements, changes were made to the Instructions to Bidders (ITB)—additions to the requirements and sometimes even retractions. In some cases, some terms were removed, only to be added again in a later version of the ITB.
One of the additions to the technical qualification requirements mandated that bidders must have O&M experience “in an airport included in the latest ranking of SkyTrax’s Top 50 Best Airports.”
While the Changi Airport Group Singapore (CAGS) won the SkyTrax Award in 2018, CAGS and CAP are twoseparate entities and this award was not given to CAP, the company within the Changi franchise that is included in the consortium, a rival consortium pointed out. BCDA’s requirement for O&M experience is clear: Bidders must be able to demonstrate that it has had experience doing O&M in a SkyTraxawarded airport. It is unclear how CAP actively participated in the O&M of Changi Singapore, or how CAP was directly responsible and accountable for Changi Singapore at all.
Despite this, BCDA received CAP’s bid and opened its financial proposal. BCDA then disqualified the only other bidder aside from the CAP consortium under reportedly questionable grounds: A “mistake” in formatting when no formatting rules were prescribed.
Given BCDA’s stringent and overzealous adherence to its requirements in its ITB, it seems uncharacteristic of BCDA to accept CAP’s bid despite its obviously not fulfilling one major requirement. Like we said: Curiouser and curiouser.