Ramon S. Ang gives up P26M in easy money
San Miguel president Ramon S. Ang gave up his chance to make at least P26 million in easy money last year when, for still unclear reasons, he failed to exercise his stock option.
According to a regulatory disclosure, the deal-driven RSA had the option to acquire 587,556 SMC shares as part of his executive compensation package between 2009 and 2017.
When that option expired on June 25, SMC was trading in the P103-range, against the P58.05 option price. Which means RSA could have easily flipped the stock then and there, and easily cleared P45 a share, or about P26 million in all.
Had he acquired and kept the optioned stock, that pile should now be worth about P78 million.
In any case, P26 million, even P78 million, is loose change for the San Miguel top gun. RSA on record owns about 9.73 percent of the San Miguel empire, a slice that, even with the market plunging into a correction mode, is still worth P32 billion.
SMB HK, with Manila's help, reports turnaround
And speaking of San Miguel, its San Miguel Brewery Hong Kong subsidiary is reporting a turnaround after two trying years. Ang
Its 2017 revenue increased to HK$566 million from nearly HK$542 million in 2016, and its yearend profit to HK$15 million, more than double the previous year’s.
A closer look, however, revealed that revenues from Hong Kong had actually lost by a hairline to HK$288 million from HK$289 million the year before.
The territory’s revenue growth actually came from mainland China and, surprisingly, from higher Philippine sales, the latter jumping to HK$201 million from HK$188 million.
It also helped that RSA and the rest of the board, including Filipino directors Carmelo Santiago, Carlos Antonio Berba and former chief justice Reynato Puno, waived their entitlements to all their emoluments.
SMB Hong Kong managing director Ramon Torralba also chipped in to improve the bottom line, with his 2017 paycheck shrinking to HK$2.67 million from HK$2.87 million in 2016.
To quote an SMB slogan, Iba ang may pinagsamahan!
Metrobank throws the kitchen sink at rogue officer
For having skimmed P1.75 billion from its coffers, Metrobank is going at a rogue officer with hammer and tongs, and even throwing the proverbial kitchen sink for good measure.
Metrobank chairman Arthur Ty and president Fabian Dee, in a joint report, said cases have been filed in Singapore and the United States to “preserve and recover” funds and properties belonging not only to dismissed officer Maria Victoria Santa Ana-Lopez, but also to her “cohorts and family members.”
A former head of Metrobank’s corporate service management division, Lopez is currently incarcerated at the Makati City jail, after her motion to fix bail was denied by the Makati Regional Trial Court, said Ty and Dee in a report to shareholders ahead of next month's annual meeting.
Lopez is facing three criminal complaints and one civil case for having, in Metrobank’s words, abstracted and subsequently wired a mind-boggling P1.75 billion to overseas accounts until her legerdemain was discovered in July last year.
Metrobank was economical with the details of the dastardly financial chicanery, but went on to reassure both shareholders and investors that the bank had already fully provisioned the P1.75-billion pain in its accounts receivable.
On the civil case, the Makati RTC has also granted the preliminary writ of attachment against Lopez, “her family, cohorts and corporations,” including presumably Lopez’s Menage Premier Salon in Makati and the Fort.
Money talks
• Air Asia is taking advantage of the Holy Week travel rush by launching its second daily Manila-Taipei-Manila flight this Palm Sunday.
• PBCom chairman Eric Recto is set to join the board of Aboitiz Power as an independent director.
Heard through the grapevine
After Globe Telecom, recently retired SGV chairman Cirilo Noel has sewn up another independent directorship, this time with Security Bank, where SGV has been the external auditor for 26 straight years.