InterAksyon.com means BUSINESS
PNoy sister Ballsy Aquino-Cruz has cut short her directorship in Central Azucarera de Tarlac, the refinery controlled by her late mother's family within the Cojuangco's controversial Hacienda Luisita sugarcane plantation.
Cruz gave up the position of treasurer in favor of her aunt, Paz Cojuangco-Teopaco, during a special stockholders' meeting specifically called the other week to create an eighth board seat for the family refinery.
Cruz, 57, PNoy's eldest sister, was appointed only last August to fill the vacancy caused by the passing away of an aunt, Josephine Cojuangco-Reyes. She was later reappointed to the same position only last January during the annual shareholders' meeting.
Despite her withdrawal, the presidential sister is still very much involved, albeit indirectly, in Luisita affairs. She is listed as vice president of Jose Cojuangco and Sons, the
management company of the sugar refinery.
As well, she is listed as director of Luisita Realty Corp. and Tarlac Development Corp., the latter being the financing company of the refinery.
Teopaco, on the other hand, is the youngest sister of the late President Cory Aquino. With her election, Teopaco joins her husband, Ernesto, who has been a director of the refinery since 1986.
Philippine Star defies web implosion
You may feel discomfort with Philippine Star's being unabashedly pro-PNoy but the newspaper owned by the family of Speaker Feliciano Belmonte Jr. has so far weathered, and even prospered amid, the 24/7 onslaught of free internet news.
Star reported a record P194.9 million profit last year, an enviable 15.8 percent increase from 2010's.
Even the editorially tame Manila Bulletin managed to see a 3.8 percent rise in its 2011 bottom line to P191 million.
The only major daily that is suffering from profit erosion seems to be the Philippine Daily Inquirer.
Despite its tabloidish orientation, the Inquirer has been reporting steadily dwindling profitability to P110 million in 2010 from P122 million in 2009 and P125 million in 2008. (The Securities and Exchange Commission still has no copy of Inquirer's 2011 financial statement as of Friday.)
Star in fact overtook the Inquirer as early as 2009, when the Belmonte paper posted a net income of P123.6 million.
Money-go-round
• The first wife of taipan Lucio Tan, Carmen, is joining the board of MacroAsia Corp. amid rumors that the Philippine Airlines, whose day-to-day operations have been ceded to new joint-venture partner San Miguel Corp., will henceforth keep transactions with MacroAsia at arms-length.
• With his biggest Audi patron Ramon Ang in the captain's seat of Philippine Airlines, Audi dealer Robert Coyiuto Jr. looks forward to adding PAL back to his family's Prudential Guarantee's roster along with current insurance client Cebu Pacific.
Heard through the grapevine
Despite being the second largest individual shareholder, PNoy uncle Ernesto Teopaco was absent in Wednesday's contested shareholders' meeting of the Nationwide Development Corp. that saw his classmate, Nadecor chairman Jose Ricafort, and Nadecor president, former PNoy Transportation Secretary Jose de Jesus, formally eject Nadecor's Canadian partner, St. Augustine Gold and Copper.
Teopaco, whose 12.75 percent shareholding is enough to earn him a board seat, was supposed to have given his proxy to, of all people, PNoy's electoral nemesis, Senator Manuel Villar Jr. and his Queensberry Mining group.
Email Vic Agustin at cocktales_tv5@yahoo.com
InterAksyon.com means BUSINESS
BUSINESS NEWS
