Wellex, PDCP Bank eye Net link

Change your game, change your name.

At least two more publicly listed companies are planning to change their corporate names to complement the shift in the nature of their business toward the Internet.

By May this year, Wellex Industries Inc., the holding firm for the manufacturing businesses of presidential adviser for overseas Filipino workers William Gatchalian, will henceforth be known as ICorp Cybernetics Inc.

"This is to reflect the shift in the primary business activity of the corporation into the information technology sector that will include all Internet-based business and other e-commerce activities, Wellex corporate secretary Arthur Ponsaran told the Philippine Stock Exchange.

He said Wellex was among the most recent converts into the Internet bandwagon, intending to "position itself very quickly in this rapidly expanding sector via the acquisition of existing or start-up technology companies through the setting up of subsidiary operations or creating operating divisions in the company which can be subsequently spun off."

Wellex has in its fold the Plastic City Industrial Corp. (PCIC) and Philfoods Asia Inc. PCIC is the country's first fully-integrated manufacturer of plastic products used in various industries such as packaging, appliances and other durables, waterworks, sewerage, and telecommunications while Philfoods is being groomed into a major processor and producer of packaged beverages and foodstuffs which include bottled drinking water, fruit juices, powdered drinks and cereal-based products such as biscuits and instant noodles.

Another listed company, PDCP Bank controlled by the Metro Pacific Group, is contemplating on calling itself E-Business Bank, or such other name its shareholders will eventually decide on also by May this year when they hold their annual stockholders meeting.

Although the bank will not necessarily transform itself into an internet company, its frontline services will be heavily focused on the use of information technology to distinguish itself as the country's first integrated online banking network.

The noted transition in corporate identity was started off late last year by hardly traded stocks Acoje Holdings and South Seas Resources, which transformed into Internet stocks Ajo.Net and PhilWeb.com and almost overnight took the fancy of speculative investors to catapult them among the most active stocks in the market.