Another Ortigas retires after an estimated P30B manna from SM, Ayala
Another member of the Ortigas clan has been made redundant after the Spanish-Filipino landowners received an estimated P30-billion windfall from competitors-turned-uneasy partners Ayala Land and SM Group.
Jaime Ortigas, 71, had ceased to be a director of the Concrete Aggregates Corp., following the Ayala-SM acquisition of at least 87 percent of the Concrete Aggregate’s parent, OCLP Holdings Inc.
Concrete Aggregates said yesterday it had obtained regulatory approvals to shrink the number of directors to seven from 11, thereby eliminating the board seats of Jaime Ortigas, SM lawyer Edmundo Tan, Ortigas lawyer Michael David Abundo III and Ortigas executive Jose Rodriguez IV.
The shakeout leaves trusted Ayala Land executive Jaime Ysmael in firm management control as chairman, president and chief executive, three positions he occupies as well within the Ortigas holding company. The board shrinkage left one Ortigas, Maria Asuncion “Miren” Ortigas-Padilla, whose family owns the Padi’s chain of restaurants, holding out in the Concrete Aggregates board.
Ayala Land has yet to disclose how much it had to pay to acquire about 47 percent of the Ortigas holding company through Ignacio Ortigas, but a belated regulatory disclosure from the SM Group offered an indication of the serious wealth transfer that had transpired among the country’s wealthiest clans.
According to regulatory filings, the SM Group last year shelled out P15.4 billion to acquire nearly 40 percent of the Ortigas clan holding company following an aborted bidding war with Ayala Land.
The SM Group said it had gained exactly 39.96 percent of the Ortigas holding company by acquiring six private companies, said to be those representing the shareholdings of cousins Fernando Ortigas, Francisco Ortigas III, Maria Victoria Ortigas Arando, Remedios Ortigas, Eduardo Ortigas and Jaime Ortigas.
The P15.4-billion price tag was incidentally way below the P40 billion offer made to the same bloc by an unknown British Virgin Islands company, before Ayala and SM dropped the bidding war and agreed to a commercial detente.
Known as the developer of Greenhills shopping center, Tiendesitas and Capitol Commons, OCLP Holdings had total assets of P23.6 billion as of end-2015, according to an audit estimate of SGV.
Despite its multi-billion investment, the SM Group said it has so far received a meager P27 million in return, representing its share of the OCLP profit for 2015.
And speaking of the multi-billion buyouts, two Ortigas nieces who have brought a collation suit against the clan, siblings Edwina Angelica Michelle Litton Ortigas and Francesca Renee Litton Ortigas, have not only been kept out of the sale proceeds, but had even been served with a foreclosure notice.
According to the grapevine, uncle Fernando Ortigas as the estate administrator of the Ortigas matriarch has asked for court approval to foreclose on about P6 million in shares of stock and a small property left behind by the late Remedios Miranda Ortigas.
The two sisters are claiming that their late father, one of the six children of the late Ortigas matriarch, is still entitled to the fabulous wealth reputedly left behind by their grandmother.
The two sisters’ father, Jose Miranda Ortigas, died in 1997, while their grandmother, the Ortigas matriarch, passed away only in 2012.
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