Tanco’s STI wins bid for foreclosed PWU assets

MANILA, Philippines - STI Holdings Inc. of businessman Eusebio Tanco has scored a win over the Benitez family in their ongoing battle over the 96-year-old Philippine Women’s University (PWU).

In a disclosure to the local bourse yesterday, STI Holdings said it has been declared by the Regional Trial Court of Manila as the winning bidder for the PWU assets in Manila following foreclosure auctions.

STI Holdings said it won properties along Taft Avenue in Malate, where the PWU school is located, as well as a property located at Pilar Hidalgo Lim St., also in Malate.

“We will continue  it as a school, a much better run school. A school that is more relevant to the time. We will pour in more resources into the school,” Tanco said.

Tanco’s camp has earlier filed extra-judicial foreclosures to PWU properties in Manila, Quezon City and Davao due to the Benitez family’s alleged failure to pay almost P1 billion in accumulated loans, interest and expenses.

PWU is majority owned by the Benitez family.

The family, through matriarch Helena Z. Benitez, on Monday filed for an involuntary rehabilitation of PWU in hopes of preserving the school’s operations.

The petition for rehabilitation of PWU, if granted, would suspend the extrajudicial sale of lands currently occupied by PWU in Manila and Jose Abad Santos Memorial School in Quezon City.