Out of retirement

Suyen Corp. chairman Ben Chan has gone one step further than his competitors. You see, he owns (not subcontracts) a company in China to mass produce all those clothes sold in his Bench store outlets.

This way, Mr. Chan can keep his costs down while having complete quality control of his products.

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Rolando Hortaleza doesn’t brag about it but Splash Corp. is probably the top-selling foreign skin-care brand in Indonesia. (Like Filipinas, Indonesians can’t seem to have enough of Splash’s Extraderm skin whitening skin line).

Then again, exports account for only 30 percent of the Splash’s multi-billion peso business. While Rolly Hortaleza takes care of operations and product development, his wife, San-san Hortaleza, keeps a tight watch on finance.

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Former Bonifacio Land Corp. president Ricardo Pascua couldn’t stay retired for long.

Ric Pascua is now vice-chairman of Phoenix Land, Inc., which was put up by some former officers of Landco Pacific Corp. led by Danilo Antonio.

Phoenix Land’s first project is a resort-farm, which takes off from two Landco projects: Canyon Woods, which is a resort and residential subdivision project; and Leisure Farms, which is a farm and residential subdivision project.

Mr. Pascua is expected to feel at home in Phoenix. For one thing, the "promdi" boy from Lucena prayed hard before making his decision. For another, he’s comfortable working with the guys from Landco. As everybody knows, Landco and BLC are subsidiaries of Metro Pacific Corp.

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Bank notes 1: It was a show of support when Lucio Tan and Macario Te alighted from the helicopter and jointly walked to the boardroom of the Philippine National Bank last Friday.

Then again, Mr. Tan’s mommy has taught him too well. This is a man who will not show disrespect to an older man, whatever the circumstances.

Mr. Te – who is better known in business circles as the 73-year-old or so golfer with an incredible hole-in-one record of close to 20 – has not been, uh, a calming influence in the boardroom for the past few months.

He is one of four PNB directors representing the interest of the Lucio Tan Group, itself a misnomer because there is no such thing. The holding company of Mr. Tan is called Basic Holdings.

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Bank notes 2: Friends of Peter Yeates – and he has many after four years in the country – can look him up the next time they’re in France. Mr. Yeates has been kicked upstairs as deputy chief executive officer and head for international private banking HSBC subsidiary, Republic Bank.

His replacement here as senior vice-president for personal financial services is Martin Cook. Mr. Cook’s last assignment was as deputy head of cards in Brazil, replaces Peter Yeates.