Government, Tan to field 1 slate for PNB board

Government and taipan Lucio Tan will field a common slate for the new board members of the Philippine National Bank (PNB) who will be elected on Tuesday.

According to PNB president Feliciano L. Miranda Jr., government will put in four nominees headed by Norberto C. Nazareno, president and chief executive officer of the Philippine Deposit Insurance Corp. (PDIC). The others are former Finance Undersecretary Flor Tariella and veteran bankers Francisco Dizon (Asian Bank and Rizal Commercial Banking Corp.) and Vicente Panlilio (Far East Bank and Trust Co.).

The Tan group will have five nominees, namely Domingo Chua, Macario Te, Eric Filemon, Tan and Miranda.

Completing the 11-man board will be two independent board members, namely Washington Sycip and Cielo Macapagal-Salgado.

Miranda said it had been agreed by both camps that Nazareno would be nominated by the new board members as its new chairman.

Meanwhile, Nazareno said government is open to a debt-for-equity swap amounting to P5 billion. "That would be our initial minimum recommendation. And that PDIC will be the owner of the shares of that P5-billion equity swap," he added.

He said there is no real ceiling except that government will make sure that the government exposure after the rehabilitation will not exceed 51 percent. The plan remains that the bank would still be privatized in the final analysis.

Meanwhile, Miranda said the bank’s management will insist that the P10-billion government loan be used to offset the liabilities of the bank.

But government is studying the option that their debts to the bank would be paid dacion en pago rather than in cash.

Government is being pressured by global financial institutions to privatize the troubled bank as a condition to drawing from a $200-million fund. Lately, government admitted that the bank would not be privatized by the June deadline set by the World Bank.

However, they will still continue the rehabilitation program, which will lead to the privatization of PNB.