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THE week
ended April 11 belonged to the SM group of companies.
Two of its units dominated the market’s biggest gainers
and worst performers.
PCI
Leasing and Finance Inc., a unit of Equitable PCI Bank,
which has been merged with Banco de Oro Universal Bank,
surged 27.27 percent on Friday to close the week at
P1.96 from P1.54 in the previous week.
Incidentally, PCIL’s rise followed the firing of the
company’s president and another top officer.
PCI
Leasing told regulators in a filing posted on April 10
on the web site of the Philippine Stock Exchange that is
board decided “to dismiss Manolo C. Arzadon as president
and chief executive officer, and Mr. Dante B. Julian as
assistant vice president and head of the company’s
accounting department.”
The
board did not elaborate on the dismissal of Arzadon and
Julian, who were among the 10 highest paid executives of
PCI Leasing.
In a
filing, PCL Leasing said Arzadon and company received
P11.008 million in salary in 2005 and P2.752 million in
bonuses; P12.109 million and P3.027 million in 2006.
Last year, the company estimated the group was to get
P13.32 million in salaries and P3.329 million in
bonuses.
Rarely
traded, PCI Leasing had a value turnover of P1.96
million on April 11; P17.08 million on April 10; and
P60.06 million on April 9. It hit a high of P1.96 on
Friday and recorded its month’s low of P1.40 on
February. 27.
Other
top gainers
The
investors who are still holding on to their IPO shares
in Oriental Peninsula Resources Group Inc. are still
behind by a few centavos despite the stock’s climb on
Friday to P2.28—a few centavos off its 30-day high of
P2.38—for 21.28-percent gain from P1.88 the previous
week. The company’s shares were first traded on December
19, 2007 after selling 300 million shares at P2.68 each.
In
selling shares to the public last year, Oriental, which
reported deficit of P24.731 million as of July 31, 2007,
grossed P804 million which it intended to use for
“capital acquisition and infrastructure development as
well as further exploration and administration of the
Pulot and Toronto nickel projects.”
The
company’s mineral properties have a combined area of
approximately 2,176 hectares. The 1,048-hectare Pulot
nickel project is at the municipality of Sofronio
Española while the 278-hecatre Toronto nickel project is
situated at barangay
San Isidro, also in
Palawan. The filing did not identify the municipality.
Only two
stocks of the market’s top 30-biggest gainers recorded
value turnover of over P100 million. These were
foreign-fund favorite Manila Water Co. of the Zobel
group with P171 million and the Lopez family’s First
Philippine Holdings Corp. with P182.42 million.
In a
filing posted on April 10 on PSE’s web site, MWC, which
gained 1.39 percent for the week when it closed Friday
at P18.25, said Smallcap World Fund Inc. of Los Angeles,
California bought 2.85 million MWC shares at P17.50 each
on March 31. With the additional acquisition Smallcap’s
ownership in MWC topped 5 percent at101.176 million
shares.
First
Philippine Holdings was at the bottom of last week’s top
30 biggest gainers. It closed on Friday at P44, up 1.15
percent from previous Friday’s P43.50.
The
Lopez-controlled holding company is in the process of
raising P3 billion by selling 30 million perpetual
preferred shares, which will be listed on the exchange.
First
Philippine Holdings now has an authorized capital stock
of 1.41 billion shares valued at P32.10 billion. This
consists of 12.10 billion common shares with par value
of P10; 200 million preferred shares with par value of
P100.
As pf
December 31, 2007, First Philippine Holdings had 588.912
million issued common shares and 50 million issued
preferred shares. Of the issued preferred shares, the
company issued 20 million shares to FGHC International
Inc., 15 million shares to First Philippine Electric
Realty Corp. and 15 million shares to First Philippine
Realty Corp.
Two of
the market biggest losers belong to the SM group of
companies. Highlands Prime Inc., where businessman Henry
Sy Sr. is chairman of the board, topped last week’s
biggest losers. It closed on Thursday at P2.30, down
20.69 percent from P2.90 on March 31.
Highlands Prime was not traded on Friday. Its only other
trade aside from the ones on April 10 and March 31 since
February was on March 28, when it traded during the
session at P2.80 on value turnover of P8,400.
Highlands Prime is rarely traded because over 90 percent
of its outstanding shares are held by the SM Group and
Belle Corp. The two major owners combined as of March
31, 91.02 percent. PCD Nominee Corp. held 56.287 million
shares, or 2.5058 percent.
Banco de
Oro-EPCI Inc., BDO’s new name after taking over EPCIBank,
was No. 18 in the list of losers. With value turnover of
P205.825 million, it closed at P49.50 on Friday for
week’s gain of 7.48 percent, way off its 30-day high of
P55 on April 2 but topped by few centavos its month’s
low of P43.50 on March 17.
Incidentally, with BDO’s decline last week came a filing
that the SM Group sold 453,360 BDO shares and 400,000
BDO shares on March 13 and March 14 at P33 per each. The
unloading reduced the holdings of SM Investments Corp.
as of March 31 to 1.102 billion shares, or 47.887
percent, which consisted of 260.373 million, or 11.31
percent, indirectly owned shares and 842.019 million
directly owned BDO shares, or 36.577 percent.
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