Tan agrees to government ‘call option’ on PNB shares

Taipan Lucio Tan has agreed to allow the government the right to buy back Philippine National Bank (PNB) shares equivalent to the number of shares it lost when it passed up the recent stock rights offering. Such right is referred to as a "call" option.

"After a series of meetings with Tan over the sale of PNB shares, he (Tan) finally agreed to allow the government to buy back PNB shares through the call option," Finance Secretary Jose T. Pardo said yesterday.

The "call" option will allow the government to buy back the shares it did not acquire in the recent stock rights offering of PNB. The said option will also allow the government to bring back to 30.4 percent its stake in PNB after it was reduced to about 16 percent when it did not participate in the stock rights offer held last September.

Tan picked up the shares intended for government, along with the shares of other PNB stockholders who did not subscribe to the capital call.

The stock rights offering allowed Tan to take majority control of PNB without having to purchase the government’s stake before the rights offering.

Tan was supposed to have earlier agreed in principle to bind him to a "put and call" option to avoid a lawsuit from the government following his decision to back out of an earlier deal to purchase the government’s 30.4-percent stake in PNB through a public auction.

Tan has rejected government’s proposal to bind him to a "put and call" option.

But following a series of meetings, Pardo said government and Tan have reached an agreement wherein "government would retain the right to buy back its shares from Tan three years from now at a price of P60 per share interest free."

"Based on a net present value computation, government would only be paying P34 per share, three years from now, hopefully after PNB has been successfully rehabilitated," Pardo explained.

PNB and BSP are negotiating a rehabilitation plan which is not tied to the call option. – Marianne Go