PNB bucks amended rehab plan of Uniwide

The Philippine National Bank (PNB) has asked the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to junk the amended rehabilitation plan proposed by Uniwide Sales Inc.

In an opposition filed with the SEC, PNB said that it would be paid proportionately with Allied Bank Corp. through dacion en pago of Metromall.

The payment will be net of Warehouse Club and will be executed either through direct transfer or the formation of a special purpose vehicle.

According to PNB, its critical concern is a proposal that will carve a portion out of the Metromall to accommodate the Warehouse Club.

On top of this, a right of way of at least 12 meters wide will be annotated on the title and provided to the Warehouse Club for free.

Finally, the amendment proposes the discounting of 20 percent on the loan amount in the determination of the dacion value.

The proposals are legally infirm and highly prejudicial to PNB, said the bank. PNB’s rights as mortgagee is substantially curtailed.

It is grossly unfair and inappropriately one-sided that after several years of exposure on the unpaid loan, PNB will be summarily grabbed off of its security which is its only hope of recovering its investments, the bank said.

PNB said the proposal to carve out a certain portion of the Metromall and to compel the bank to abandon part of what was mortgaged to it could not be sanctioned by the SEC.

PNB’s outright rejection of Uniwide’s amended rehabilitation plan came after the Bank of the Philippine Islands earlier accepted the plan as viable.

BPI’s approval, however, was conditioned on being allowed to start foreclosure proceedings against two major properties as payment for its secured loans.

BPI was also against accepting delivery of the two Uniwide properties through a special purpose vehicle (SPV) instead of being allowed to effect a non-contested foreclosure proceeding over the properties.

The bank said the SEC should wait for Congress to act on the proposed Act before allowing Uniwide to use this scheme to settle its debt.

Based on the rehab plan, Uniwide will stick to its core business of retailing (and leave out its disastrous investments in real estate) to make the balance sheet of its flagship unit Uniwide Warehouse Club Inc. free of bank debts.

This will be done through a combination of dacion en pago arrangements of non-operating assets and cash payment.

Casino was supposed to infuse fresh capital amounting to P3.57 billion for the needed cash in exchange for management control of the company but the French firm decided it was not yet ready to come into Uniwide’s rescue and gave up its interest in investing.