DOF woos ALI back to talks over FTI sale

MANILA, Philippines - The Department of Finance (DOF) is trying to woo property giant Ayala Land Inc. back to the negotiating table as the government tries anew to dispose of the 103-hectare property of Food Terminal Inc. (FTI) in Taguig City as it scrambles for much needed funds to plug its yawning budget deficit.

Finance Secretary Margarito Teves told reporters that Ayala Land could resume negotiations with the government after the DOF failed anew to dispose of the sprawling property through a bidding last year.

“Some, like Ayala, backtracked a little. They try to come back to the seller (government) after a while. Ayala can comeback. I won’t be surprised if Ayala comes back,” Teves said.

He pointed out that a negotiated sale with two other interested parties of the failed FTI bidding last year was on track.

Ayala Land was among those hinted early this week as among the interested parties that government is holding negotiations with.

During last year’s formal bidding, Ayala Land did not submit a bid for FTI but stayed on until government resorted to a negotiated sale instead of re-bidding.

Aside from the property giant, the other interested groups were Robinson’s Land Corp. of taipan John Gokongwei and Century Properties of businessman Joey Antonio.

For her part, Finance Undersecretary Crisanta Legaspi told reporters that the Privatization Management Office (PMO) is still accepting offers from other interested groups including state-run pension fund manager Government Service Insurance System (GSIS).

Legaspi said the PMO has already turned down the offer of GSIS to buy the property for P7 billion or a little over more than half of the asking price of P13 billion.

She added that GSIS could always submit an improved offer.

Earlier, GSIS president and general manager Winston Garcia threatened to sue top officials of DOF for ignoring the pension fund’s offer to buy the property.

GSIS was among the first to show interest in the property but lost interest toward the middle of last year. Its last offer was still lower to the revised asking price of government which is between P9 billion and P10 billion.

The FTI property is a 120-hectare agro-industrial commercial estate in Taguig. It was originally built to be a food processing and consolidation center for agricultural products. It houses more than 300 small-to-medium scale companies engaged in different industries such as manufacturing, garments and electronics.

Of the 120-hectare property, the government is selling 103 hectares because the remaining 17 hectares are owned by the National Food Authority (NFA).

The FTI is one-third of the three-asset package put up for auction last year to generate at least P30 billion. Other assets in the auction block included the PNOC-Exploration Corp. (PNOC-EC) and the Fujimi property in Tokyo, Japan.