NSC, Allengoal ink lease pact

National Steel Corp. (NSC) has signed a lease agreement with Allengoal, a landmark development that might finally allow the defunct company to reopen its Iligan plant and resume operations.

With the signing of the agreement, the Malaysian-owned company, Hottick Investment Ltd. has pulled out of the evaluation committee created to study proposals for the Interim lease for NSC and said it has approved the lease agreement between NSC and Allengoal.

In a letter to Trade and Industry Secretary Manuel Roxas II, Hottick chairman Datuh Abdul Rashid Abdul Manaff advised the government that it will no longer participate in the activities of the evaluation committee.

The committee was earlier created by the government to receive, evaluate and select proposals for the interim lease of the NSC’s Iligan plant, after the company was taken over by Pengurusan Danaharta Nasional Bhd, Malaysia’s debt rehabilitation agency.

In his letter, Manaff said Hottick was still interested in seeing NSC operate its plant as soon as practicable and that the investment company had advised the NSC board to "revisit" the lease agreement forged earlier by the NSC with Allengoal.

"This is to be done with the end view of implementing the agreement the soonest possible and where deemed appropriate and practicable, under improved terms and conditions in favor of the NSC," Manaff said.

According to Manaff, NSC chief executive officer Ibrahim Bidin and chairman Emilando Napa have been appraised of Hottick’s decision to pull out of the evaluation committee and push for the lease agreement with Allengoal.

It is not known whether the agreement has had the approval of Danaharta which had also assumed the holdings of several Malaysian banks in NSC.

The Malaysian banks – Malayan Banking, RHB Ban, Bank Bumiputra and Commerce Assetholding Bhd – had earlier extended a three-billion ringgit loan to Hong Kong’s Hottick Investments Company which had also taken over the initial investment of the Westmont Group in NSC.