Yuchengco Group seeks ownership of PTIC stake

The Yuchengco Group has asked the Supreme Court to declare it as the owners of 31 percent of the Philippine Telecommunications Investment Corp. (PTIC), a company that owns 14 percent of the Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. (PLDT).

The 31-percent stake in PTIC forms part of the 46-percent shareholding of Prime Holdings Inc. (PHI) in PTIC. This 46 percent, consisting of 111,415 shares in PTIC, was earlier ordered reconveyed by the Supreme Court in favor of the government.

As for the balance of 15 percent, the Yuchengcos said the Republic is the undisputed owner since they were ill-gotten wealth, held by the Cojuangcos in trust for the Marcoses.

PHI and the family of businessman Antonio Cojuangco, which owns 100 percent of PHI have asked the High Court to reconsider its decision, insisting that these shares were not part of the ill-gotten wealth of the late President Marcos.

Alfonso Yuchengco and Y Realty Corp. have jointly filed a motion for reconsideration of the SC decision and opposed Cojuangco’s motion.

According to the Yuchengco Group, Marcos had coerced Yuchengco into giving up 31 percent of those PTIC shares, consisting of six percent PTIC shares which Yuchengco purchased from Gregorio Romulo and Leonides Virata; and 25 percent that were covered by a put and call‚ option agreement between Yuchengco and General Telephone & Electronics Corp. (GTE).

The group claimed that sometime after PTIC’s acquisition of 28 percent of PLDT, Romulo and Virata became disgruntled with the Cojuangco group’s management of PTIC so the two offered to sell their respective three percent shareholdings in PTIC to Yuchengco for P300,000 each.

Yuchengco agreed to buy, but Marcos allegedly objected to his acquiring additional shares in PTIC and was instead instructed to pay the purchase price of P600,000 but to transfer the six percent stockholdings to the Cojuangco group, otherwise, his business interests would suffer. The six percent was transferred to Cojuangco and eventually to PHI. (Part of Cojuangco’s PTIC stake was transferred to PHI while the rest continued to be directly owned by him and then later sold to the First Pacific group, allowing for the latter’s entry into PLDT).

The Yuchengco Group also revealed that on Nov. 22, 1967 – at about the time GTE sold out its PLDT shares to PTIC and received 25 percent of PTIC - GTE entered into a "put and call" agreement with Yuchengco for GTE’s 25-percent stake in PTIC.

Yuchengco claims that having earlier been prevented from acquiring GTE’s shares in PLDT, it was prepared to acquire GTE’s 25-percent stake in PTIC but was similarly prevented by the late President.

GTE, it was alleged, was later compelled by the Cojuangco group to waive its 25-percent shareholdings in PTIC for free. This 25-percent stake was also later transferred to PHI.