Punching incident

Even with an arm injury, the chairman packs a wallop – right to the face of his secretary. You see, the secretary inadvertently spilled some hot coffee on her boss.

No, she’s not running to Labor Secretary Patricia Sto. Tomas. Her family needs the money she earns too much.

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Binondo has begun ticking off more similarities between Solid Mills founder Ramon Siy Lai and Ajinomoto Phils. chairman Leonardo Ty. Both died violently. Both also failed to name their successors, resulting in their heirs fighting it out for control of their father’s estate for years.

In the case of the Siy estate, its value has gone up significantly after the death of the patriarch in large part because the six children – all US educated – are competent in running the different businesses.

For all the children, however, the alternative of breaking up the conglomerate (with each heir getting his/her share) is unacceptable. After all, there’s more prestige in being part of a multi-billion-peso business group than being the sole owner of a multi-million-peso corporation.

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United Coconut Planters Bank president and chief executive officer Jose Querubin has finally settled on Rizal Commercial Banking Corp. first vice-president Herminio Famatigan to head the bank’s consumer banking efforts.

Jun Famatigan should be right at home at UCPB. He worked for SolidBank Corp. when Jojo Querubin was COO and now UCPB chairman Deogracias Vistan was president. Executive vice-president for credit Higino Macadaeg Jr. also came from SolidBank.

Another relatively new-hire, executive vice-president for support services Cesar Rubio, came from RCBC.

Functionally, Mr. Famatigan, who reports for work next week, will report to chief operating officer Antonio Cailao, the mentor of Mr. Querubin at Citibank. In turn, Mr. Famatigan will be the boss of UCPB Savings Bank president Jose Camus.

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Did you know 1: Cartoon Network – 45 percent of whose market are adults – is launching on Nov. 10 a micro-series on "Star Wars: Clone Wars", a bridge between George Lucas’ Book 2 movie and the 2005 release of Book 3.

Made up of 20 shorts (three minutes each), the animation is done by the group of Genndy Tartakovsky (the guy behind "Dexter’s Laboratory" and "Samurai Jack") who has been given a free hand by Mr. Lucas as far as the storyline is concerned.

The only caveat Mr. Lucas imposed was not to touch on the romance between Anakin Skywalker and Padme Amidala.