Yuchengco group remains PLDT stockholder, Pangilinan camp says

The Yuchengco family remains a stockholder of the Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. (PLDT), a spokesperson of the company’s chief said. “The Yuchengco group did not lose their underlying PLDT shares even as they sold their PTIC (Philippine Telecommunications Investments Corp.) shares to the group of Mr. Manuel V. Pangilinan," said Ray Espinosa, a PLDT director and the legal counsel of Pangilinan, the company’s chairman. Ambassador Alfonso Yuchengco claimed that he was forced to sell his stake in the company owing to threats from former President Joseph Estrada. Although Metro Pacific Asset Holdings Inc. acquired Yuchengco and Y Realty Corp.’s 18,720 PTIC shares, Metro Pacific Assets “paid and delivered to Y realty a compensation package consisting of PLDT shares and cash totalling P2.61 billion." PTIC used to hold Yuchengco’s stake in PLDT. The compensation package was broken down into a total of about 2.018 million PLDT common shares (with a value of P1,085 per share based on the closing trading price of such shares at the Philippine Stock Exchange on November 23, 1998) and about P424.037-million by way of cash premium. “The 2,017,650 PLDT shares paid and delivered to the Yuchengco group are now worth P4.7 billion based on today’s closing price of P2,330.00 per share. These details of the transaction belie the unsigned statement being attributed to Ambassador Yuchengco that the ‘2,017,650 PLDT common shares…were taken from me in 1998’," Espinosa added. The transaction also paved the way for the agreement between Pangilinan and Malayan Insurance Co., member of the Yunchengco Group of Companies (YGC), that the latter would insure two-thirds of the non-life insurance requirements of PLDT and that Rizal Commercial Banking Corp., another YGC member, would be a major banker of PLDT, Espinosa said. Malayan Insurance also presently handles the property insurance requirements of Smart Communications Inc. and the other subsidiaries of PLDT. RCBC is also a major bank of PLDT’s subsidiaries. Espinosa also reiterated that Helen Y. Dee, a daughter of Ambassador Yuchengco, is a director of PLDT and for the last 11 years since the transaction took place has been part of the directors nominated and voted by Pangilinan’s group. - GMANews.TV