RP’s Temasek?

Coffee shop hangers-on have been telling us that one of the most followed unfolding saga in the corporate world is the brewing conflict between Filipino shareholders and a group of board directors led by Malaysians at the Philippine Racing Club.

Expect a lot of probes in the aftermath of this conflict, our friends say, offering the prognosis that the row has shades of the Temasek controversy which rocked the Thai business community and eventually spilling into that country’s political realm.

The Malaysians own a large stake at the racing club via the Kuala Lumpur firm Magnum Holdings Berhad. The company is chaired by one Datuk Surin Upatkoon who also represents the Magnum interest in the board of the racing club which, incidentally, owns the 21-hectare race track in Sta. Ana, Makati.

Surin, who is actually a Chinese-Malaysian, appears to have played a major role in the Temasek controversy which many say was instrumental in the downfall of Thai prime minister Thanksin Shinawatra.

The public’s probing eyes are on the possible role of the Surin group in the conflicts hounding the racing club.

The Filipino shareholders have earlier sued the Malaysian-led directors following allegations that there has been no full disclosure of a move to swap the ownership of the Sta. Ana racetrack with shares in JTH Davies Holdings. The ruckus was apparently triggered by the lopsidedness of the swap deal: the race track is valued at about P10 to P12 billion; JTH Davies is a P25-million firm which has divested itself of all its business assets.

The Cua family is the partner of the Malaysians in PRCI. Patriarch Santiago Sr., also known as Cua Sing Huan sits as honorary chair of PRCI. His son Solomon sits as president, another son Simeon, is executive vice president and Santiago Jr., as director. The Cuas it will be recalled, also owned major shareholdings in the defunct Westmont Investment Corp. (WinCorp).

The court has halted that swap deal. Then the Philippine Stock Exchange revealed that unregistered foreign holdings in the racing club has exceeded the constitutional limits to alien ownership in local firms since 2005.

The questioned swap deal and the mockery of the Philippine constitution’s cap on foreign ownership could not be isolated, independent events, our coffee shop gang opines. And it cannot be helped if Surin is believed to be key in both.

And as such, creates the impression that the racing club row has shades of the Temasek Holdings scandal that rocked Bangkok a few years back.

Surin is now being investigated by Thai police authorities regarding that Temasek scandal. Temasek is a major Singaporean firm which engineered a takeover of several vital Thai corporations belonging to the Shin group, said to be owned by the family of Shinawatra.

There are three reasons why the Thais exploded in anger over that take over. First, it was viewed as a “Singaporean invasion”. Second, the Shin group which Temasek eventually controlled owned several interests which have serious national security implications and were of high economic and sentimental value to the Thais.

The Thais called the Temasek takeover “a sell out of Thailand’s sovereign interests”.

The third reason is what the Thais perceived to be the sinister manner in which the take over was engineered. The Temasek group used a private firm called Kularb Kaew to consummate the Singaporean acquisition of the Shin conglomerate.

Thai authorities have pinpointed Surin as the majority stakeholder of Kularb Kaew

Would the racing club suffer the fate of the Shin conglomerate? Our friends say there are too many similarities to discount the possibility. The Sta. Ana racetrack is a valuable business asset which, like the Shin companies, has vast sentimental value to Filipinos. Questions are now also being asked as to whether or not JTH Davies is our local version of the infamous Kularb Kaew.

And, of course, the common denominator and the emerging center of the maelstrom is Datuk Surin Upatkoon. Will he do to Filipinos what he did to the Thais?

If there are patriotic directors in PRCI board, there could be no version of a Temasek takeover in this country, our barako gang surmise.

So there is now a search for elements of patriotism and good governance  in that board. A name stands out – Renato de Villa, former defense chief and presidential aspirant.

The Filipino’s hope is that with De Villa in the board, there could be enough patriotism to go around and prevent a local version of the Temasek-spurred Shin debacle.

We join in that hope. No, we don’t own racing club shares. We are merely stakeholders in a larger “business concern”. It’s called Philippines. It happens to be our country.

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