The raiding goes on

Although they have a gentlemen’s agreement to close ranks, companies managing industrial parks have been price gouging each other.

The undercutting is so bad that what used to go for P3,500 per square meters can now be had for P3,000/sqm.

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This early, there are talk of government appointees who might be asked to retire to save face – hey, the other alternative is being fired and/or laterally moved to a less hot agency during the five-day New Year weekend.

At least two of these names head government agencies which many people would give almost anything, short of dying or their mistresses, to get.

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Bank notes 1: There’s talk that Andrew and Mercedes Gotianun are entering an industry where they are totally clueless. Then again, the company supposedly being lusted after (oops, the very religious Ms. Gotianun might object to the word) has some interesting properties that Filinvest might want to develop.

Right now, the company owes a great deal of money to the Gotianun-controlled East West Bank and to a couple of other banks.

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Bank notes 2: Well, well. This former banker is telling everybody he is this close to succeeding Rizal Commercial Banking Corp. founder Alfonso Yuchengco as Philippine Ambassador to the United Nations. The banker, who would like everybody to believe he’s got the left, not to mention the right, car of President Macapagal-Arroyo, would have wanted a job closer to home and something closer to banking.

Al Yuchengco will keep himself busy with his AY Foundation, a proponent of social return on investment or ROI before it became fashionable.

By the way, one of the easiest ways to irritate Mr. Yuchengco is to call up the chairman emeritus of RCBC. The man obviously looked up the word in the dictionary and found the phrase chairman emeritus or retired chairman an oxymoron.

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Bank notes 3: At the rate he is raiding senior executives from other banks Philippine National Bank Lorenzo Tan runs the risk for being snubbed by his fellow chief executive officers at the Bankers Association of the Philippines.

Yayi Tan likes to pirate from Citibank, where he spent about 15 years, and United Coconut Planters Bank, where he spent close to three years. Mr. Tan’s latest target is Andrew Alcid, a former Citibanker and the current executive vice-president and chief operating officer of Cocobank.

The job being dangled? Being president of Hong Kong-based PNB International.

As everybody knows, it was Mr. Tan who convinced Andy Alcid to leave Citi, where he spent years out of the country. Largely an investment banker, Mr. Alcid’s is said to share at least two qualities with Mr. Tan – both are extremely sharp and both keep a killing pace at work (which makes a gym for PNB employees now a necessity).