The Government Service Insurance System (GSIS) looks to push ahead with its assets-sale plan this year despite the setbacks it suffered when its billion-peso property-disposal program hit a snag last year.
In an interview, GSIS President Robert Vergara said they continue to try to get the properties auctioned as soon as practicable, starting with one property within the first half this year.
“We are going through our properties and we are conducting appraisals. We need to do that to set a minimum price. The idea is to try to get one going this year in the first half of the year.”
“But you know, in the event that that becomes too difficult, then, perhaps, we’ll just look at some time in the second half of the year,” he quickly added.
Vergara acknowledged there were failed biddings in the past that he attributed to so-called technical difficulties.
“Last year we tried. We had a couple of failed biddings. Sadly one of them was the Jai Alai property,” Vergara said.
Among the other units the GSIS failed to dispose under a bidding process was the GSIS Family bank, its
thrift-bank arm.
“The last time we [tried], we found the people who won the bid were ineligible because of the requirement of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas [BSP] on nonbank owners. We’re still finding a way to get a structure that will allow us to get the private sector to buy the bank,” Vergara said in earlier reports.
Regulators previously disapproved of Phindep Development Corp.’s bid to acquire the GSIS property on the ground that a nonbank cannot own more than 40 percent of a lender.
Phindep was the sole bidder at the public sale of the GSIS thrift unit.
“It’s very hard to put a deadline for this, [bidding] right now,” Vergara said.
He also acknowledged that, with the presidential elections coming just around the corner, there may be some restrictions on its sale that could lead to further delays.