Court stops San Miguel from easing out Malaysian partner in tollways project
The Mandaluyong Regional Trial Court has stopped San Miguel Corp. from easing out its Malaysian shareholder in the South Luzon Expressway (SLEX) and Skyway projects.
Judge Carlos Valenzuela of Branch 213 has granted the writ of preliminary injunction sought by the Citra Group preventing San Miguel from exercising beyond its 51-percent stake in their joint venture, Atlantic Aurum Investments.
The May 2 court order essentially maintains the boardroom and management status quo while the two joint venture partners are litigating their ownership and financial issues.
Both Citra and San Miguel could not be reached for comment, as the ongoing litigation apparently has a nondisclosure provision.
The Jakarta-listed Citra Group originally had a 44-percent stake in the joint venture, but San Miguel claims that its effective ownership in the SLEX and Skyway projects had already gone up to 95 percent after a series of complicated capital-raising exercises.
According to the grapevine, San Miguel foreclosed on the Citra shareholdings after the Indonesian tollways operator, instead of forking out its own capital, turned to a local bank, said to be BDO, for a loan facility ahead of a planned initial public offering.
Based on earlier disclosures, both Citra and San Miguel had agreed to form the holding company, Atlantic Aurum, to raise capital through an IPO for the multi-billion funding requirements of the SLEX and Skyway extensions.
That IPO plan had apparently been shelved, as San Miguel last year announced the transfer of the Atlantic Aurum shares into a San Miguel subsidiary and the consolidation of the tollways business into its books.
The consolidation of the SLEX and Skyway business contributed P13.3 billion in revenues and P7.3 billion in operating income to San Miguel’s consolidated results for 2015, San Miguel said in its latest annual report.
The first public inkling that all was not well in the partnership came in early 2013 when a Citra Group official held an unusual teleconference from Jakarta with journalists in Mnanila to complain about the terms of entry of a Singapore-based fund into the joint venture.
In the Mandaluyong complaint, Citra dispatched no less than its Jakarta-based president director Shadik Wahono, instead of its Philippine president Ramon Borromeo, to file the petition for interim measure of protection.
Despite 5-6 blast, Duterte will rely on Indian vessels
Rodrigo Duterte racked up laughs and votes during the campaign sniping about 5-6, a consumer lending term popularized by Indian traders where every P5 borrowed will balloon to P6 in just a month, effectively inflicting a 20 percent interest a month for the hapless borrower.
Ironically, despite the racial undertones, the incoming president will find his administration relying on India to help counter the Chinese imperial aggression in the West Philippine Sea.
One of the last major military contracts that is waiting to be awarded by the outgoing PNoy administration will be to an Indian state shipbuilder to supply Manila with two warships.
Kolkata-based Garden Reach Shipbuilders & Engineers has emerged as the lowest bidder to build two light frigates for the Philippine Navy for $321 million.
According to an Indian government announcement, the light frigates will be based on the Indian Navy’s Kamortaclass anti- submarine corvette and will have anti- radar, infra-red stealth features.
Capable of withstanding waves up to nine meters, the 2,000-ton, 95-meter long frigate will have 76mm naval guns, as well as launchers for missiles and torpedoes.
SC shoots down family ruse
The ruse of Nadecor rump board “chairman” Jose Ricafort to use his wife and children to question the stockholders’ meeting that elected the group of former Foreign Affairs Secretary Roberto Romulo as chairman and Conrado Calalang as president of the King-King mine operator has been shot down by no less than the Supreme Court.
Noting that Ricafort himself had attended the disputed 2011 meeting, “it defies reason, too, that he could not have informed his wife and children, who live in the same house with him, of the scheduled annual stockholders’ meeting,” said Associate Justice Bienvenido Reyes in a decision released last week.
Claiming they were unaware of the annual meeting, Ricafort’s wife and children questioned all the way to the highest tribunal in a vain attempt to keep the Romulo group, who is allied with brown taipan Manuel Villar Jr. and a listed Canadian group, from taking board and management control of the mining company.
The Ricafort ruse had even made public their family feud, with Ricafort’s son, Raymond, who is currently the Nadecor treasurer, testifying against his octogenarian father and his ally, former PNoy Cabinet member Jose de Jesus.
Heard through the grapevine
A young billionaire heiress with apparently too much time on her hands has posted on Instagram a staged photo of her naked self in bed, equally enticing and distracting viewers with a slice of what looks like pepperoni pizza.
Earlier, her equally gorgeous sister also uploaded her topless half in another Instagram blog. The two sisters belong to one of the country’s de buena
familia, whose strict privacy guidelines apparently clash with the siblings’ European sensibilities on nudity.
More clues? Ask Philippine Tatler’s Anton San Diego; his selfie is in one of the blogs.