Racing Club saga

There seems to be a renewed interest among our colleagues in media and in the business community on the saga of the Philippine Racing Club, Inc. (PRCI), that long-running feud between a group of directors of the firm who are backed by the Malaysian gaming interest Magnum Berhad, and Filipino minority shareholders.

It appears the renewed attention has much to do with the forthcoming retirement of Supreme Court Associate Justice Minita Chico-Nazario who heads the division that put a halt to the legal processes initiated by the Filipino shareholders through a temporary restraining order (TRO).

The Chico-Nazario retirement watch has gone beyond who will get appointed to the SC seat that she will vacate. The interest now, it seems, is whether or not she will get the PRCI Filipino minority case against the Malaysian-backed group back on track or let the case die a natural death.

The hope of the business sector, of course, is that she would let the case get back on track so that it can be tried on its merits and so that the public can understand the issues better. The legal conflict has sparked much interest on the condition of corporate governance in the country, and the adherence of publicly-listed companies to the principles of transparency and shareholder rights as embodied in our laws.

This legal conflict has been running for more about two years now. It is probably about time it gets to a rightful conclusion that would benefit not just the protagonists but the corporate sector as a whole.

Recent developments in the PRCI saga, however, seem to have compounded the issues on transparency and shareholder rights. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) sources revealed that JTH is reportedly being sold to an unknown buyer for some P153 million. This has baffled many since we recall that PRCI – despite the opposition of Filipino minority shareholders – shelled out P449 million to buy this company.

This baffling development has raised new fears. For one, who is the unknown buyer? Since JTH Davies now owns that priceless Sta. Ana racetrack, wouldn’t this mystery buyer end up owning a valuable piece of the country, and for a song? The hope is that this mystery buyer is not a foreign interest for whom a local entity might just be fronting.

That fear, of course, continues to be fanned by the presence of Surin Upatkoon in the PRCI board as part of the Malaysian-backed faction. PRCI’s Surin Upatkoon is the same Thai-Malaysian-Chinese businessman whom Thai authorities accused of maneuvering the controversial take-over of the giant Thai company Shin Corp. on behalf of the Singapore interest Temasek Holdings.

There are also questions as to why the firm is being sold at a measly P153 million when it was bought with PRCI investors’ money for a whopping P449 million? Who shoulders the loss and who enjoys the margin? If JTH Davies has to be sold at a significant loss now, doesn’t that validate the fear of the Filipino investors when they first objected to PRCI’s purchase of the said holding firm?

There are talks that the Chinese –Filipino half of the Malaysian-backed faction already wants to find ways to end the long-running feud with the Filipino investors. The scuttlebutt is that the Malaysians have put their foot down on any effort at an amicable settlement of this feud.

The business community can only wonder why. And wonder likewise as to who is really running PRCI, a publicly-listed Philippine company.

Will this saga end soon? Nobody really knows.

New technology

One of the more unfortunate consequences of the recent typhoons was the lack of food supply in many areas.

If only there was a way to preserve food long enough to address such emergencies.

But there is.

There is a relatively new technology called the Agri-Freeze solution which can preserve the quality of food for up to one year without any weight and quality loss. Using brine immersion freezing (BIF), aquatic products, meat, fruits and non-leafy vegetables can be preserved using super-conductive liquid instant freeze.

Liquid instant freeze allows instant freezing, which, as a result, eliminates crystallization, thus preserving the freshness, flavor and texture of the frozen product.

Filipino inventor Hernie Decena said that products like fish and meat, if properly processed using BIF, can be stored for two to three days in Styrofoam boxes without using ice. When stored inside freezers or chillers after the BIF freezing, they can last up to six months.

It takes as little as three to 30 minutes to freeze a product using BIF, compared to the conventional method, which takes three to four hours to freeze a product using the air blast system.

A BIF compartment, which has a wheeled stand, is only as big as a chest-type refrigerator or freezer, thus making it easy to transport and move around and plug into any available electrical outlet. The old-type blast freezer or holding freezer needs to be permanently put in place and requires large installation works and a massive separate electrical supply.

The BIF freezer is also as easy to use as a microwave oven. You just wait to reach the ideal freezing temperature of between minus-30 degrees and minus-40 degrees, and that’s when you start to freeze the product, whether it be fish, meat, fruits or non-leafy vegetables.

These freezers can also be used as ice-making machines, producing ice equivalent to a load of 3,000 kilos a day in less than two freezing hours per loading of 8- to 10-kilo mini block ice, unlike a conventional block ice maker that takes 37 hours to freeze a 130-kilo block of ice in a 20-to-60-tons-per-day capacity ice plant.

The BIF also uses only 120kW/Ton to freeze 500 kilos of products in three to fifteen minutes, and requires just four people to operate, and 40 square meters of floor space unlike the Individual Quick Freeze method, which requires at least 10 people and 150 square meters of space.

One more advantage of BIF is its use of alcohol as a secondary refrigerant that makes it a natural disinfectant. Also, because of its very low-freezing point property, no bacteria or microorganism can survive.

For those who want to view this technology up close, it is said to be on display at the convention and seminar-exhibit of the Philippine Society of Mechanical Engineers at the SM Mall of Asia in Pasay City.

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