Banco de Oro to bid for Exportbank

MANILA, Philippines - BDO Unibank Inc., the country’s largest in terms of assets, will bid for the rehabilitation of the shuttered Export and Industry Bank (EIB) next month, officials confirmed yesterday.

BDO chairperson Teresita Sy-Coson said “yes” when asked by reporters if the bank will bid for EIB, which was put under receivership by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) last April 27 after it failed to service depositor claims.

Sought for clarification if BDO will bid for EIB’s assets or commercial bank license, Sy-Coson said on the sidelines of the Philippine Energy and Infrastructure Meeting in Makati City: “Whatever the government will open.”

She declined to elaborate.

The Philippine Deposit Insurance Corp. (PDIC) has set separate biddings for EIB’s assets and liabilities as well as its commercial bank license. The former, which will cover EIB’s 50 branches and assets of about P27 billion, will be auctioned off in Oct. 18 after pre-qualification to bid was successfully held last month.

For the banking license, pre-qualification will be opened this week, PDIC has said, with no definite date yet for the actual bidding.

Sought for details, BDO president Nestor Tan told The STAR in a phone interview that the Sy-led bank filed pre-qualification documents before PDIC for the first phase of bidding.

“Yes, we did but as of now, we are still assessing everything,” he said, without elaborating.

 Aside from BDO, the Rizal Commercial Banking Corp. also expressed interest in rehabilitating EIB. PDIC has declined to provide details on those that pre-qualified for the auction.

A bank’s rehabilitation, which will also require BSP approval, will include another lender managing EIB’s finances and paying its large obligations, enough to ensure that after the program the bank could function again properly.

PDIC has been servicing depositor claims pending the start of the rehabilitation process.