PSE asks Metro Pacific to review proposal

The Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE) has asked Metro Pacific Corp. (MPC) to reconsider its decision to discontinue with the building of the bourse’s new headquarters by 2004.

PSE president Ramon T. Garcia said the Exchange’s Building Committee has come up with a counter letter to MPC’s plan junking its original offer of donating both land and building to PSE once it moves in at the Bonifacio Global City three years from now.

"The Building Committee looked it up, and proposed to submit back the original offer," Garcia said.

In 1997, the MPC-led private consortium developing Fort Bonifacio has offered to host the PSE by donating both land and building to be fully ready by 2004. However, the Asian financial crisis and the slump in the country’s real estate have factored into MPC’s bottomline, causing the property developer to suffer losses from its operations.

At present, the PSE headquarters are at the Tektite Towers in Ortigas, while along with Ayala Towers in Makati, operates two trading floors under a functional merger scheme. Both properties are similarly donated assets from Philippine Realty Holdings and Ayala Land Inc. whose 10-year deed of restrictions expire on 2004.

Garcia said under the new proposed memorandum of understanding, MPC will be donating a lot on the northern portion of the Global City to PSE, which will then be responsible for putting up its own structure.

The PSE official added it was stipulated that the building will have to be constructed within a certain time frame, otherwise the property reverts back to its donor, or to MPC.

Garcia said since the PSE is not capable of putting up the building by itself, the Exchange could go into a joint venture agreement with another developer willing to shoulder the cost of construction. Ironically, this is the same scheme offered by MPC on an 18.9-hectare portion also north of the Global City’s central business district waiving its development rights on the property.

The PSE head pointed out that such a building structure need not be huge or expensive, since in this era of "floorless trading," where brokers in several countries such as Hong Kong, Japan, Korea and Singapore can now trade and deal right in their offices, only the PSE’s administrative personnel offices, the computer equipment – and the brokers’ lounge and visitors’ gallery – need to be housed in the new headquarters.