Row over future home of PSE worsens

The dispute over a unified stock exchange center turned for the worse over the weekend when the Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE) demanded from Fort Bonifacio Development Corp. (FBDC) and Capital Consortium Inc. the deeds of donation covering properties promised by the developer in Bonifacio Global City.

In identical letters, the PSE asked Manuel Pangilinan, chairman of FBDC, and Ricardo Pascua, president and CEO of Capital Consortium, to deliver within 48 hours the deeds of donation as provided for under a 1999 agreement.

Under the agreement, the PSE was to relocate to Bonifacio Global City its unified trading floor by the year 2000 which would spur the development of the area and enhance its reputation as the country’s new financial capital.

In return, FBDC and CCI were to donate a 40,000-sq. meter lot in Capital Place to become the new financial center inside Bonifacio Global City and provide P250 million for the construction of a PSE building by the year 2001.

Last week, the PSE thrashed a proposal by FBDC and CCI to amend the agreement covering the donation of land and construction of a building shell for P250 million as covered by a memorandum of agreement signed in February 1999.

FBDC/CCI had proposed to donate another lot outside of the Capital Place zone for the PSE. However, FBDC and CCI indicated it would no longer construct the building it had committed under its 1999 agreement with PSE.

Under the relocation agreement, FBDC committed to start construction of the PSE headquarters and unified trading floor in the Global City zone known as Capital Place by 2001.

The new PSE facilities are scheduled, under the agreement, to be completed and operational by December 2004.

The PSE said the deeds of donation are long overdue, citing the stock exchange experience with the donations of Ayala Land and the Ortigas Center for the present stock exchange trading floors and offices at the Ayala Center in Makati and the Tektite Building at Ortigas Center in Pasig, which were turned over within a week of the signing of the agreements.

Last week, the PSE advised Pangilinan and Pascua that it was not acceding to suggested amendments to their agreement. The PSE insisted on the implementation of the agreement which it said "was arrived at after a long process of deliberation and evaluation.

"To open (the relocation agreement) to amendments at this time, specially along the lines that you have suggested, would be going back to the drawing board," the PSE said.

The PSE also demanded FBDC/CCI to desist from representing Bonifacio Global City as "the future home" of the exchange.