THE court-approved rehabilitation plan of preneed firm PETPlans Inc. is expected to be put in place shortly.

Details and logistics of the plan are now being made final with a universal bank that will manage the fund.

The plan basically calls for the conversion of existing preneed policies into participating units under a unified trust fund.

From P2.835 billion at the time the petition was filed, PETPlans’ consolidated trust fund has grown to an estimated of P2.915 billion as of August 30, 2007.

PETPlans filed its original petition for rehabilitation with the Makati Trial Court in April 2006 to secure its trust fund for the benefit of all planholders amid restrictive rules and regulations that aggravated conditions at an already beleaguered industry. A modified petition was filed in June 2006.

After considering various comments from oppositors and other stakeholders, the Makati RTC Branch 149 presided by Judge Cesar O. Untalan issued on April 30, 2007, a resolution approving the Modified Rehabilitation Plan, or MRP, subject to certain terms and conditions. The court, however, asked PETPlans to stay in the preneed business.

Since then, PETPlans has worked on threshing out implementation details with the designated bank.

To ensure the MRP will work smoothly, the process was given more time than expected considering the complicated task of unifying all the trust fund assets into a single account and reconfiguring software to manage the records and accounts of plan holders.

Through its 18 years in business, PETPlans sold a total of 77,440 educational plans, 32,185 memorial plans and 264,544 pension plans inclusive of terminated and fully serviced plans. At the time of its petition, about 125,000 plans were active or in force.

Until the date of its conversion, PETPlans has paid benefits for all preneed plans that fell due. With the MRP approved, PETPlans will let go of control over the management of the trust fund, as a professional fund manager pursuant to a court order will now solely and independently manage this.

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THE court-approved rehabilitation plan of preneed firm PETPlans Inc. is expected to be put in place shortly.

Details and logistics of the plan are now being made final with a universal bank that will manage the fund.

Did you know 1: In the aesthetics (read: cosmetic surgery) industry, the surgical procedure that makes a woman a virgin again is colloquially called a flower arrangement.