Ayalas join Campos bid to buy FPC stake in BLC

Greenfields Development Corp., owned by businessman Jose Yao Campos of United Laboratories (Unilab), is going all out in its bid to buy out Hong Kong-based First Pacific Co. Ltd.’s 50.4- percent stake in Bonifacio Land Corp. and now wants the Ayala Group to be its partner in the venture.

Highly placed sources told The STAR that Greenfields and Ayala Corp. are currently finalizing the offer which will be made through FPC subsidiary Metro Pacific Corp. (MPC) which owes $109 million to another FPC subsidiary Larouge BV, secured by 50.4 percent of BLC’s outstanding stocks.

This is not the first time that the Ayala group and Greenfields are entering into a partnership. The two had earlier jointly developed a property in Laguna for residential use and are now developing a nearby property for an 18-hole golf course.

Campos earlier entered into a partnership with businessman Antonio O. Cojuangco to assume the $109-million (principal plus interest) loan extended by FPC subsidiary Larouge BV to Metro Pacific Corp. (MPC) secured by 50.4 percent of BLC’s assets.

It was learned that Campos first approached Cojuangco about the possibility of taking over the loan. Now, the owner of United Laboratories (Unilab) is also asking Ayala group to be its partner in the venture.

There was an earlier attempt to create a consortium between Campos, Cojuangco and the Ayala group, but the plan fizzled out due to disagreements between Cojuangco and the Ayala group as to the ownership structure.

It was learned that the Ayala group wants a majority stake in the undertaking, but Cojuangco does not want to be the minority. As a result, Campos is currently weighing the advantages and disadvantages of going either with the Ayala group or Cojuangco.

Sources said that if Campos decides to partner with the Ayalas, Cojuangco will have to decide whether or not to still make an offer regarding BLC on his own, or to just use whatever resources he has for a bid to take over First Pacific’s 24.4 percent stake in the Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. (PLDT).

MPC has a more than 80 percent stake in BLC, which owns the Fort Bonifacio Global City in Taguig, its biggest asset.

FPC earlier entered into an agreement with the Gokongwei group which calls for the establishment of a joint venture arrangement (one-thirds by FPC and two-thirds by the Gokongwei group) that will assume not only the Larouge loan but also buy out FPC’s 24.4 percent economic interest in PLTD.

The Cojuangco-Campos tandem, which is joined by a foreign group, was earlier offering to pay $105 million in cash, which MPC will use to pay Larouge, and thereby free MPC of a huge portion of its liability.

On the other hand, the FPC-Gokongwei group joint venture will pay for the loan over a three-year period.

The agreement between First Pacific and the Gokongwei group is being opposed by both PLDT and Metro Pacific management.

There are speculations that the Ayala group’s interest in Bonifacio Land was prompted by the its desire to prevent the Gokongwei group from taking over. The Gokongwei group had inidcated earlier that it plans to junk the high-end development strategy of Boni Land for a more mass market oriented type of development, a move that could bring down real estate prices in the Makati business district and therefore adversely affect the values of Ayala’s land inventories.

Reports about the Ayala group’s interest in BLC was reported last Sunday in The STAR’s Hidden Agenda column. As a result of such a report, the stock market index rose one percent yesterday.

A Reuters report said that the market was mainly boosted by speculation on the Ayala Corp,’s interest in Bonifacio Land which is developing the Global City project, a multi-billion peso mixed-use development at the edge of the Makati Business District.