A great way to start 2007

I start a new column in the Business section of The Philippine STAR today, a great way to start the year. I’ve decided to call this column "Takin’ Care of Business" mainly to take care of the business of business, or my thoughts on other areas that concern the country, the economy and other important developments in the business circuit.

Of course I’ll also depend on our readers to give us information, so we will have a feedback mechanism where you can write and let us know what it is that concerns you.

We will bring in as many stories as we can about encouraging trends, comments and analysis on what’s happening here and abroad. And, we will continue to do a critical analysis — but all in the spirit of constructive criticism. We look forward to this new column of ours, and we will help try to make sense of the things happening around us today.

Many of you younger ones would probably associate "Takin’ care of business" with the lyrics of that song, but "Taking care of business" is a line I have always used on many occasions on the business side of things — where I’ve always told our staff on several occasions to make sure to "take care of business." In this case, we will try to take care of the business of writing on business and other major concerns confronting our country. We look forward to communicating our thoughts to the millions of STAR readers here and abroad for this coming year.

To start off, we just received information about the recent ruling of a Delaware court about the legal battle involving ATR Kim Eng (ATRKE) Financial Corp. and its subsidiary ATR Kim Eng Capital Partners against businessman Carlos Araneta et. al. for breach of fiduciary duty when the latter caused the transfer of key assets of the LBC Global Corp. — now known as PMHI Holdings Corp. — to members of his family, thereby denuding the Delaware-based holding company and leaving ATR Kim Eng with a floundering company whose assets have been substantially diminished.

Apparently, it looks like ATRKE won the case filed before the Chancery of the State of Delaware, where they were awarded $3.9 million plus in damages. One has to be really careful when going on a public offering especially abroad, because you can be subjected to all kinds of legal suits, and where the case will most likely be decided in favor of the investor.

One must remember that in the United States today, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has become a more powerful institution and more so especially after the Enron scandal which shook investor confidence in American business. The SEC is stricter and tighter now on rules, and one can easily go to jail for corporate shenanigans.

The ATRKE suit versus Araneta and company is a clear case of a deal gone wrong. Fortunately for ATRKE, filing the case in the United States will most likely make them recover their fairly large investment of P353 million.

We will continue to monitor the developments of this celebrated multi-million dollar case.