EPCIB to hire financial adviser to study BDO offer

Equitable PCI Bank will hire an independent financial adviser to study the P41.3-billion takeover offer by Banco de Oro Universal Bank, according to the head of the Social Security System (SSS), the bank’s second-largest shareholder.

The decision was made at a meeting yesterday of the executive committee of Equitable’s board, which also asked management to make its own study of the offer by BDO said SSS president Corazon de la Paz.

The state-controlled pension fund owns 29 percent of Equitable.

The management of Equitable may present its initial recommendations as early as the Feb. 17 meeting of the full board, said Winston Garcia, president of the Government Service Insurance System, another state-run fund whose more than 12-percent stake makes it Equitable’s third-largest stockholder.

"It was a cordial meeting where we did not discuss the share swap offer. Instead, we instructed, management to conduct a preliminary study," Equitable chairman Ferdinand Martin Romualdez said.

We might have to hire a financial advisor to make an independent assessment of the BDO proposal," he added.

Retail magnate Henry Sy, BDO’s owner and the nation’s richest man — according to Forbes Magazine — would be elevated to — a top three banker in the Philippines as a merger would create a bigger rival to Metropolitan Bank and Trust Co. and Bank of the Philippine Islands, the nation’s top two lenders.

Metrobank and BPI each had more than P550 billion of assets at the end of the third quarter. Equitable had P327 billion while BDO had P212 billion. The Sy group, including BDO, bought 25 percent of Equitable in August and last week said they had raised that to 34 percent.

The group offered 1.6 BDO shares for every share of Equitable, equivalent to about P57 a share or a total of about P41.3 billion. They asked Equitable to respond by Jan. 31.

Asked whether they planned to beat the Jan. 31 deadline, Romualdez said "that depends on the study."

Since the meeting did not discuss the share swap offer the board saw no need to ask Tessie Sy, the executive committee chair, and Vicente Panlilio, representing the BDO shares, to inhibit themselves from the discussions regarding the merger issue.

BDO president and chief executive officer Nestor V. Tan earlier said they are open to hiring an independent financial advisor to determine the value of the offer. — Ted Torres