Timely sale. PCD Nominee Corp. held for foreigners 253.994 million shares, or 21.80 percent of 1.165 billion outstanding shares, in First Gen Corp. as of December 31, 2007 and 204.46 million shares, or 17.55 percent as of March 31, 2008. This means in a period of three months, foreigners sold 49.534 million FGen shares. The unloading was timely as they escaped the market’s continued fall. The Philippine Stock Exchange index (PSEi) lost 636.93 points, or 17.587 percent in a three-month period—from 3,621.60 on December 28, 2007 to 2,984.67 on March 31, 2008. FGen, which is included in computing PSEi, closed the last trading session in 2007 at P59.50. It hit a high of P42 on March 3, 2008 and, 11 days later on March 24, dropped to a low of P29.

Executive compensation. Whether FGen’s stock price rises or falls, the company’s top executives do not have to worry about the compensation. A filing shows their increasing pays and perks. In 2007, the “chief executive officer and four most highly compensated officers” received P171.712 million, which consisted P92.474 million in salaries and P79.238 million in bonuses and which topped the company’s estimate of P159.96 million—P87.688 million in salaries and P72.273 million in bonuses—by P11.752 million, or 7.35 percent. FGen paid the group P145.418 million—PP79.716 million in salaries and P65.703 million in bonuses—in 2006. It estimates the group’s compensation to go down to P146.744 million—P83.854 million in salaries and P62.890 million in bonuses in 2008.

Compromise deal. Something happened inside the boardrooms of Ayala Land Inc. (ALI) and of its unit Avida Land Inc.  in between two disclosures. In a filing posted on the web site of the Philippine Stock Exchange on February 22, 2008, ALI told of a suit filed with the Regional Trial Court of Quezon City against it for “patent infringement” of Vasquez modular housing unit by Vasquez and Vasquez Systems Corp. The court ruled against ALI and ordered the Zobel-controlled property company to pay Vazquez P90 million “as temperate damages or reasonable royalty plus 6-percent interest” from December 1999, when the suit was filed “as well as “moral damages and exemplary damages and reasonable attorneys’ fees and cost of suit.” In its February 22 posting, ALI said Avida was appealing the court’s ruling. Then on April 14, 2008, it informed regulators that “Avida has entered into a compromise agreement with Edgardo Vasquez and Vasquez Building Systems Inc. to resolve the patent infringement case…” according to ALI, the court approved the agreement on March 17, 2008. “This agreement paves the way for the final settlement of the case,” ALI said. The exact amount involved in the deal was not disclosed.

By the numbers. Whether or not Philippine Racing Club Inc. (PRCI) got a final favorable ruling from the Supreme Court, the investors may want some numbers that would give them a glimpse of the story behind some numbers in the proposed exchange of PRCI’s 212,069-square meter property in Makati, the present site of the company’s Santa Ana Race track, with 795.818 million shares in JTH Davies Holdings Inc. The swap would translate to 3,752.636 JTH shares per square meter. At a price of P5.86 in the second quarter of 2007,  when the share-for-property exchange was approved by PRCI’s board, the entire property would have been worth P4.663 billion. Unluckily, JTH has been dropping since. Though rarely traded, it hit a high of only P2.08 on March 4, 2008 but plunged to a low of  P1.20. Based on these prices, the cost of acquiring the property by JTH has also been dropping—to P1.655 billion at P2.08 per share and to P954.98 million at P1.20 per share.

Profit update. GMA Network Inc. posted net income of P2.307 billion in 2007 on revenue of P12.057 billion. Based on a financial statement dated March 28, 2007 and signed by Melinda Gonzales-Manto of SGV and Co., the broadcast company’s net profit in 2007 was 17.584 -percent higher than its profit of P1.962 billion on revenue of P11.071 billion in 2006. On March 10, 2008, GMA Network issued a press release in which it said “it posted a consolidated net income of P2.33 billion in 2007, 19-percent higher that its net income of P1.96 billion in 2006. Something was missing in the press statement: It did not qualify if the figures were based on audited or unaudited reports.

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THE strong performance of the economy last year had a positive impact on the financial results of cement maker Holcim Philippines Inc., boosting its net income to P2.2 billion from P1.5 billion a year earlier.

Cebu Air unfazed by PAL Express

CEBU Air Inc., also known as Cebu Pacific, says it is unfazed by the entry of PAL Express—the newly established low-fare unit of Philippine Airlines (PAL)—and remains confident it would emerge as the country’s top domestic airline.

RESTAURANT operator Pancake House Inc. (PHI) ended 2007 with a consolidated net profit of P63.4 million, up 58 percent from P40.15 million a year earlier.

COMPUTER maker Hewlett-Packard Co. has launched a new “family” of disk arrays at entry-level prices put within the reach of small and medium enterprises (SMEs).

THE Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE) said Wednesday it will sell separately, in a public bidding, the trading rights and shares owned in the bourse by suspended brokerage firm Asian Capital Equities Inc. (ACEI).

PCD Nominee Corp. held for foreigners 253.994 million shares, or 21.80 percent of 1.165 billion outstanding shares, in First Gen Corp. as of December 31, 2007 and 204.46 million shares, or 17.55 percent as of March 31, 2008.