We did not sell Philex shares - SSS

MANILA, Philippines - Mr. Jarius Bondoc’s Gotcha column last December 15 was baseless and unfair to the Social Security System (SSS) and its members.

A column blurb said: “An obscure group with no capital borrows P800 million from DBP, buys up shares in a mining firm, sells these (with the SSS) for at least P3.2 billion profit, but pays DBP no interest.”

He also said: “The influential firm egged the SSS to sell its 22-percent hold on Philex. When the government-run private provident fund agreed and announced so, Philex prices further soared to P19. When the SSS finally unloaded at P21 per share in December 2009, the powerful firm piggybacked on the sale to the same businessman.”

This is false. The SSS has not unloaded any block of its shares in Philex Mining. In fact, we disclosed in a report to the Securities and Exchange Commission last December 8 that SSS continues to own 22.43 percent of Philex Mining as of November 31, 2010. Our stake represents 1,103,565,052 common shares of Philex.

Disclosures made by First Pacific Group Ltd. to the Philippines Stock Exchange as reported by Bloomberg revealed that there were only two block transactions involving Philex since 2009.

First Pacific bought the 9.2 percent Philex stake of the Ongpin group, DBP and Walter Brown on December 2, 2009. It also bought the 5.9 percent stake of the Government Service Insurance System on January 21, 2010. Both transactions had a nominal price per share of P21.

Thank you for giving us the opportunity to correct misleading information for the benefit of our members and stakeholders.