WANTED: President and COO. Liberty Telecoms Holdings Inc. is in need of a president and chief operating officer. In a posting on the website of the Philippine Stock Exchange, it said: “The position of President and COO remains vacant while the corporation continues its search for suitable candidates to fill the position.” The company made the disclosure in a filing on the results of its annual stockholders’ meeting on May 24. Elected by the stockholders were seven regular directors led by Ramon S. Ang, chairman of the board, and two independent directors who will assume office upon the approval of the increase in the number of the members of the company’s board to nine from seven. Liberty Telecoms, the newest telecom player, has yet to report profits. In the first quarter, it reported comprehensive net loss of P306.109 million. As of March 31, it had accumulated deficit of P4.790 billion but had additional paid-in capital of P3.992 billion. San Miguel Corp. indirectly owns 643.701 million Liberty Telecom shares, or 49.76 percent, which are held by Vega Telecom Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary. Qtel West Bay Holdings S.P.C. of the Kingdom of Bahrain, a wholly owned unit of wi-tribe Asia Ltd., owns 426.800 million shares, or 32.99 percent.
Ownership profile. Cebu Air Inc., which owns and operates Cebu Pacific, has 611.236 million outstanding shares as of April 30. Of these, the Gokongweis own 400.817 million shares, or 65.57 percent. A filing posted on the website of the Philippine Stock Exchange shows that outside the family, foreigners beat Filipinos in the ownership of Cebu Air shares. The same posting lists PCD Nominee Corp. as record holder of 158.339 million shares, or 25.90 percent, for foreigners and 53.880 million shares, or 8.81 percent, for Filipinos. Of the PCD-held foreign-owned shares, HSBC Corp. and Deutsche Bank Manila hold for clients 96.884 million shares and 31.192 million shares, respectively. When Cebu Air went public last year, it allocated “up to 130.646 million shares” for international offer” and “up to 55.991 million shares for domestic offer.” The shares were sold at P125 each. Cebu Air hit a 30-day high of P98.15 on May 13 and recorded its month’s low at P76.75 on April 26.
Pays and perks. The Cosiquiens and the Saavedras should know by now that it pays to own a public and listed company and, more importantly, to have businessman Henry Sy Sr. as co-stockholder. A posting on the PSE website literally shows the big difference between then and now of the compensation of Michael C. Cosiquien, chairman and CEO; Edgar Saavedra, president and COO; Irving C. Cosiquien, treasurer and CFO; Carlos Leita, VP for operations; and Masahi Watanabe, pre-cast manager, as the five highest-paid executives of Megawide Construction Corp.: In 2010, they received P19.2 million in salary and P6 million in bonus, a big jump from P1.2 million salary in 2009. This year, the group will get a hefty increase with their combined salary going up to P48 million and their bonus to P12 million. “All other officers and directors as a group unnamed got a total of P19.2 million in salary and P6 million in bonus in 2010, up from P1.2 million salary in 2009. Megawide estimates their pay also at P48 million in basic pay and P12 million in bonus.
Rights offering. Transasia Oil and Energy Development Corp. is increasing by 2.2 billion shares its authorized capital stock to 2 billion common shares with par value of P1 each. The application for the proposed authorized capital stock of 4.2 billion will be submitted for approval by the Securities and Exchange Commission. The capital expansion, according to a filing, is intended to accommodate the issuance of more than 1.165 billion shares to cover the company’s stock rights offering. Under the offering, existing stockholders who own a total of 1.626 billion outstanding shares, are entitled to buy at P1 each seven shares for every 10 shares they own. Transasia reached a 30-day high of P1.37 on April 18, 2011 and fell to a low of P1.10 on May 24, 2011. The company said it will use the proceeds which it estimated to amount to P1.15 billion in its planned investments in 135-megawatt coal plant in Calaca, Batangas and a geothermal plant in Maibarara in Laguna.
Capital expansion. Transasia Oil and Energy Development Corp. reported net income of P47.286 million in the first quarter of 2011 reversing a net loss of P39.67 million in the same period last year. As of March 31, it had accumulated retained earnings of P1.227 billion. The last time the company undertook a stock rights offering was in June 2007 when stockholders paid P1.10 in availing themselves of the offer to buy one share for every two shares they owned. In a filing, the company said it spent the proceeds amounting to P599 million “to fund petroleum and mineral exploration and for general corporate purposes.” Then in 2009, it convened a special stockholders’ meeting to approve the increase in its authorized capital to P4.2 billion, representing the value of the proposed new authorized capital stock of 4.2 billion shares. Apparently, Transasia had enough shares to cover its stock rights offer in 2007. For its latest offering, it needs the expanded authorized capital stock of 4.2 billion shares to cover the resulting outstanding capital stock of 2.83 billion shares.
