Romualdez sets asset sales, Benguet Corp. delisting amid DU30 restriction
The Romualdez family is stripping and selling assets of Benguet Corp. preparatory to a possible delisting of what once was the country’s largest mining conglomerate.
According to the grapevine, Benguet chairman Daniel Andrew Romualdez has approved a management plan to hire legal and financial consultants to initiate preparations for what the management internally refers to as “strategic privatization plan.” Romualdez The privatization plan, essentially a delisting from the Philippine Stock Exchange, comes amid the finding by Benguet Corp. external auditor SGV that the continued suspension by the Duterte administration of Benguet’s nickel mining operations in Zambales “gives rise to an uncertainty on the (Benguet) Group’s ability to continue as a going concern due to its negative impact on the group’s operating cash flows.”
Romualdez, a celebrated New York architect, also authorized the audit committee, chaired by economist Bernardo Villegas, to engage a special auditor amid allegations of certain irregularities “against certain directors and officers.”
Benguet lost P43 million for the first half of 2018 after squeaking out a consolidated net income of P21.5 million in 2017. It suffered a P167 million loss the year before.
“The company foresees cash flow or liquidity problems over the next 12 months due to continuing regulatory issues affecting (its) nickel mining operations,” SGV said, referring to the February 2017 suspension of its Zambales operations by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources.
The suspension has not been lifted by Malacanang, despite President Duterte publicly acknowledging his political debt to the Marcoses, with Imelda RomualdezMarcos being an aunt of the Benguet chairman.
According to the grapevine, the Benguet board has also approved the sale of its Acupan gold and Sta. Cruz nickel projects, appointing former executive director and retired banker Isidro Alcantara Jr. to negotiate with potential investors.
Alcantara had also earlier obtained board approval to sell Benguet’s water rights over Laboy River in Itogon, Benguet to the Ayala-controlled Manila Water Philippine Ventures.
The Benguet board has likewise approved the disposal of its money-making medical subsidiary, BenguetCorp Laboratories, which operates four mall-based clinics in SM malls in Baguio, San Fernando (Pampanga) and Taytay, Rizal.
The medical subsidiary is headed by Ana Margarita Hontiveros, sister of opposition Senator Risa Hontiveros.
To help reduce operating expenses, Benguet Corp. sold its Eurocopter EC130 B4 helicopter to BDO Leasing and disposed of its corporate shares in Baguio Country Club, Club Filipino, and Sherwood Hills Golf and Country Club, along with shutting down its Vancouver, Canada office.
The company has been able to slash the top management compensation by half from P33.5 million in 2016 to only P16.8 million this year with the retirement last year of the chairman’s brother, Benjamin Philip Romualdez, as president and chief executive.
It also plans to sub-lease its 7th floor head office at the Universal Re Building along Makati’s Paseo de Roxas, itself already a poor shadow from its now gone Ortigas headquarters across the San Miguel Corp. complex.
And despite having already forked out over P22 million in advances, Benguet also stopped a planned diversification into the perilous news business, with its “Media Management Corp.” still being carried in its books as a “non-operating” subsidiary. Heard through the grapevine
Angeli Panganiban-Valenciano, wife of singer Gary Valenciano, has just been handed an P8.7-million headache, after her talent company, Manila Genesis Entertainment and Management Inc. lost its tax battle with the BIR at the Court of Tax Appeals.
The talent company stumbled on the alleged advances that it received from the more liquid company of Gary Valenciano, GV Productions, which the tax appellate court disallowed and instead treated as income after the Valenciano bookkeepers failed to present the proper receipts and documentation.
On top of the P8.7 million expanded VAT and withholding tax deficiencies, Manila Genesis is being ordered to pay 12 percent delinquency rate from 2008, when the inter-company advances were made.
E-mail: moneygoround.manila@yahoo.com