Expect Senate President Manuel Villar to return to Forbes magazine’s billion-dollar club next year.

Manny Villar’s real-estate business is led by Vista Land, which currently has P42 billion in resources. Said another way, Villar will be a beneficiary of the stronger peso, which is expected to hit P42 to the dollar by end-2007.

Just like the first time (read: before the 1997 financial crises), Villar will be the only native Filipino in that exclusive club. All the other Filipinos already in the club are either of Chinese or Spanish stock.

Did you know 1: There’s talk that Zuellig, which basically handles the local distribution of the more commonly-used medicines produced by multinational pharmaceutical companies, has, uhm, temporarily stopped deliveries to the UST Hospital. It seems Zuellig accountants noticed that UST Hospital has racked up an unpaid bill estimated at P25 million.

As a result, hospital patients are reportedly now told to buy their own medicines for use during their confinement.

Did you know 2: Ayala Land Inc. president Jaime Ayala is gearing up the company for a sustainable approach to the environment (read: meeting the globally-accepted definition of being environment friendly). Right now, only one Philippine company, Manila Water Co., has gotten the thumbs up from global environment groups.

Incidentally, Manila Water is another Ayala subsidiary. Among Ayala Group presidents,  Antonino Aquino is quite the queer one. You see, he continues to live in White Plains, Quezon City instead of in an Ayala-built gated community.

Did you know 3: Telenovela Marimar is so popular as far as the Visayas that women are asking their favorite hairstylists to curl their hair just like the lead character.

As everybody knows, the original Mexican miniseries started the Philippine craze for imported soap operas that are dubbed in Filipino. The current version uses local actors and local places but the storyline and the ending (which any soap opera addict can tell you) remain unchanged.

The renovation of the 31 outlets of Wendy’s Philippines is humongous. The Philippine master franchisee headed by Yvette Orbeta has set aside P100 million for the entire project, which is supplemented by a $25 million per branch subsidy from Wendy’s international operation.

Basically, Wendy’s is reinventing itself into a lifestyle experience (read: think coffee shops) where clients can sit down, read the newspapers, take their time enjoying the meals in the company of friends. Said another way, Wendy’s is reinventing itself, particularly in Europe, from a fast-food business to a “slow” and healthy-food business.

Interestingly, the Philippine operation has no sub-franchisees. Uh-huh, all 31 outlets are owned by a company that lists La Sallites Jose Pardo and Jorge Araneta, as well as Vicente Paterno as major stockholders.

As everybody knows, Titoy Pardo and his brother-in-law Ting Paterno were businessmen before and after they accepted Cabinet positions. Nene Araneta is behind the current redevelopment of the

family-owned Araneta Commercial Center. 

HOLDERS of Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co.’s debt notes that would fall due in 2009, 2012 and 2017 have given the phone giant consent to change the terms to its various bond issues, the company said Thursday.

PLDT says it will bare connection rates to AAG capacity owners

PHILIPPINE Long Distance Telephone Co. (PLDT) said it was willing to reveal to Digital Telecommunications Philippines Inc. (Digitel) the connectivity rates to the submarine-cable system only if Digitel is a capacity owner in the 20,000-kilometer Asia-America Gateway (AAG) optical fiber submarine cable system.

PHILIPPINE stocks fell for the third day, sending the index to its lowest in more than eight weeks, on concern spreading credit losses in the US will hamper growth in the world’s biggest economy.

GOVERNMENT is partnering with the Business Processing Association of the Philippines (BPA/P) in coming up with a scorecard on the readiness of Philippine cities as business process outsourcing (BPO) locations.

Smart Broadband Inc. has come up with a way for users to easily link to the worldwide web anytime, anywhere.

Expect Senate President Manuel Villar to return to Forbes magazine’s billion-dollar club next year.

Manny Villar’s real-estate business is led by Vista Land, which currently has P42 billion in resources. Said another way, Villar will be a beneficiary of the stronger peso, which is expected to hit P42 to the dollar by end-2007.