My office, your office

Uhm, Ayala Corp. president and chief executive officer Jaime Augusto Zobel de Ayala II isn’t mad or anything at SM Prime Holdings chairman Henry Sy. They like each well enough to be partners in Makro, a wholesale warehouse.

Both Ayala and SM are, however, highly liquid – SM more so than Ayala because of its retail operation – and are looking for businesses and real estate to put their excess money in.

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Manila Electric Co.’s billing statement starting next month should be interesting. As part of the industry’s deregulation, Meralco will then have to break down all those charges that it passes on to its consumers.

Such a breakdown of expenses would, for example, show a distribution charge that is one of the highest in the country – more than three times the 50 centavos a kilowatt hour charged by the National Transmission Corp. to electric distributors like Meralco.

Logic, however, dictates that – given the huge number of customers that it services – Meralco should have one of the lowest distribution charge in the country. Economics of scale and all that.

The hero or culprit, depending on one’s point of view, is the independent power producer.

Meralco claims it buys cheaper power from IPPs that it has a stake in, somewhat offsetting the higher-priced power that it buys from the National Power Corp. (All power passes through the same transmission lines).

Those who don’t like Meralco – and there are surprisingly many who are currently ganging up on the family of Meralco chairman and chief executive officer Manuel Lopez – claim the reverse. Based on this line of thinking, it is Meralco’s IPPs, not Napocor, which charge the higher rates.

Unlike Meralco, everything is light profitable with the Aboitiz-owned power companies serving Metro Cebu and Davao.

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Bank notes 1: With her appointment to the Monetary Board, Fe Barin will be using the office of former MB member Teodoro Montecillo.

This means Teddy Montecillo can stay on in Ms. Barin’s old office, which she used as MB corporate secretary before she retired and accepted the job of chairman of the Energy Regulatory Commission.

Mr. Montecillo is currently Bangko Sentral adviser, reporting directly to the office of Governor Rafael Buenaventura.

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Bank notes 2: Trade and Investment Development Corp. of the Philippines president and chief executive officer Joel Valdes has been very busy indeed.

As the country’s export-import credit agency, Mr. Valdes has been working out a deal with his Romanian counterpart, Banca de Export-Import a Romanie SA president Mariana Diaconescu.

The signing of the framework agreement is tentatively set this November.

As everybody knows, Tidcorp’s job is to push Philippine export by providing exporters with financing and guarantees.