Gozon scoops up GMA share rights after failed RSA deal
GMA chairman and chief executive Felipe Gozon appears determined to strengthen his control over the broadcast network following the collapse of the sale agreement with San Miguel president Ramon S. Ang.
At the same time, Gozon looped back in retired GMA executive Jose Marcelo Jimenez to take a more active role as vice chairman of the powerful executive committee.
In just a month since the RSA deal collapsed, Gozon’s FLG Management and Development Corp. has scooped up over 1.095 million GMA depository receipts and, also according to regulatory filings, another 872,500 shares of the country’s second-largest network.
The depository receipts will allow Gozon the right to convert each receipt into one GMA share at any day in the future at the current low share prices, anywhere between P6.10 and P6.35.
With an exercise price of five centavos each, the depository receipts have notionally enjoyed five-fold return every year since 2013.
Just last May, each depository receipt received a cash dividend of 25 centavos, the same dividend enjoyed by GMA shareholders, on top of the 27 and 25 centavos distributed in 2014 and 2013, respectively.
Going by previous filings, the Gozon company would
have obtained the additional depository receipts by transferring the equivalent number of GMA shares to GMA Holdings, essentially warehousing the stocks.
In return, GMA Holdings has the contractual obligation to pay out to Gozon or any of the depository receipt holders, the cash flows it shall receive from its investments in the broadcast network.
The Gozon depository receipts transactions are essentially transfers from one pocket to the other, as GMA Holdings is also chaired by Gozon, with his nephew Jimenez as vice chair and GMA Network president Gilberto Duavit Jr. also as president.
Viewed from a different prism, Gozon has effectively entrusted a significant chunk of his shareholdings, about 11.3 percent of the entire GMA depository bloc, to the network’s ruling triumvirate.
And to those trying to divine the tea leaves as to the GMA succession issue with Gozon turning 76 on December 8, the network just provided a vital clue.
GMA last week announced the creation of a vice chairmanship position in the network’s executive committee for Jimenez, despite the latter having retired from a management position in 2011.
The unannounced subtext to Jimenez appointment: Gozon also upgraded his relations with his elder brother-in-law and Jimenez’s father, former GMA Network chief executive Menardo Jimenez, whom Gozon had effectively sidelined.
Jimenez’s son is incidentally 51, the same age as Duavit, the network president, who represents the third family in the GMA triumvirate.
PAL starts Cairns, Auckland adventure
Philippine Airlines will start a foura-week direct service to Auckland on December 1, with the PAL website posting an introductory, all-in fare of under $1,200.
The flight leaves Manila before midnight and arrives in the mythical land of the long white cloud, after a one-hour stopover in the Australian city of Cairns, at around 4:30 pm.
For flight buffs, that translates to slightly over 11 hours of total airborne time, with the Manila-Cairns corridor taking up six hours.
The return leg leaves Auckland 7:30 pm and arrives in Manila 3: 30 am, well before the notorious daily traffic jam builds up.
Money talks
• The listed Ever Gotesco Resources has thrown in the towel on the retail operations of its debt-burdened Ever Gotesco Ortigas, allowing taipan Henry Sy’ SM Prime to take over the department store and supermarket operations of the six- hectare Pasig mall.
• The National Housing Authority is selling three squatter- infested properties adjoining the TrinomaVertis North developments of Ayala, hopefully before the year ends and the election ban scaremongering kicks in.
One of the properties is by the corner of North Avenue and Agham Road, right across the Veterans hospital; another is by the equally choice intersection of Quezon Avenue and BIR Road.
Heard through the grapevine
The most prominent Iglesia lawyer, the media-savvy Ferdinand Topacio, has similarly gone incommunicado like a number of his church brethren, changing his two cell phone numbers just as the Manalo family feud was starting to boil over into the blogosphere.
E-mail: cocktales_tv5@yahoo.com