THE public investors may not care at all whether lawyer Rodolfo V. Romero was fired as receiver of ailing Primetown Property Group Inc. by Judge Joselito C. Villarosa of the Regional Trial Court (RTC) of Makati City or he had resigned from his court-assigned job to rehabilitate the property company to which he was appointed in November 2007. Rather, they would have wanted to know if their company could still be revived. And if so, they were then eager to know when Romero’s replacement could successfully bring Primetown back to profitability. Sad to say, they were frustrated over Romero’s failure to rehabilitate the company. By now they probably know that as receiver, the lawyer and economist that he is had reportedly wanted more than the P50,000 he was to receive a month. In addition to his monthly fee, he reportedly asked for four condominium units which Primetown owns at Makati Prime Citadel. No way, said the Yap family who are the company’s majority stockholders.
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As of July March 31, here are the suffering stockholders of Primetown: PCD Nominee Corp. holds 457.447 million shares, or 52.83 percent, of which UCPB Securities Inc. owns 408.285 million shares, or 89.253 percent. UCPB Securities is also listed as direct owner of 10.22 million Primetown shares. Among the Yaps, the company’s three biggest stockholders are Gilbert with 147.370 million shares, or 17.02 percent; Kenneth, 88.69 million shares, or 10.24 percent, and Jesse, 81.50 million shares, or 9.41 percent. Asia Bank Corp. owns 25 million shares, or 2.89 percent.
Sometime in 2007, Primetown filed for rehabilitation after reporting accumulated deficit of P2.586 billion, a huge pile of losses which the company’s additional paid-in capital of P908.797 million failed to wipe out. If the said amount was applied, Primetown would still have P1.678 billion in deficit. In the absence of filings of updated reports on the company’s rehabilitation, it could not be ascertained if this—which is actually part of a quasi-reorganization—had been done to ease the burden of carrying P2.586-billion deficit in the book
As of June 30, 2007, Primetown has these numbers to show in a filing: negative stockholders’ equity of P811.111 million. It had assets of P305.475 million against liabilities of P1.117 billion. This is a financial woe that the new receiver tapped by the court has to contend with. Add to this the fact that trading on Primetown shares remains suspended after it closed at P0.37 on March 4, 2007. With all these negative factors, Primetown still has a long way to go before it could achieve recovery. A good news for the public may be the decision of the court granting the company’s petition to replace Romero as receiver who, according to court filings, had “resigned.” In a decision dated May 5, judge Villarosa chose lawyer Antonio A. Navarro III from three nominees submitted by the company. Navarro would have a lot of work to do to revive Primetown at P50,000 salary a month.
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In appointing Navarro the RTC judge noted in his decision the resignation of Romero. If indeed, Romero, “a legal practitioner, economist and professor,” had resigned, then he quit as receiver only after a petition for his replacement has been filed in court on December 3, 2010. The petition wanted Romero fired as receiver for seeking the assignment of “four condominium units at the Makati Citadel over and above his monthly compensation purportedly for services rendered…” and his false claim that he had succeeded in “getting PPGI’s creditors to convert their credits to PPGI equity.” The said conversion of liability to equity did not happen because, the company told the court, sometime in the first quarter of 2010, the creditors told Primetown in a meeting that “they were not amenable to convert their debt into equity and would instead await the final outcome of the rehabilitation proceedings…”
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In seeking Romero’s ouster as receiver, Primetown said the four condominium units which Romero had asked as additional compensation “are valued at five million two hundred fifty thousand five hundred pesos and would therefore be a gross overpayment for the services of the rehabilitation receiver.” The proposed additional amount of more than P2.252 million “over and above his P50,000 monthly fee is unreasonable, since petitioner [in this case, Primetown] is under financial distress,” the company said.
Primetown also argued that Romero’s “conduct in securing for himself certain assets of the petitioner without informing the court and without the Court’s approval was violating the rules and also unimpeachable proof that he is not fit to be further retained as rehabilitation receiver.”
Aside from Navarro, Primetown also nominated as Romero’s replacement Epifanio Punsalan and Bernardo V. Cabral. Like Navarro, they are also certified public accountant-lawyers.
