Lucio Tan grandson gets top Eton post

MANILA, Philippines — Taipan Lucio Tan has appointed his grandson Kyle Tan in his property company Eton Properties Philippines as executive director, handling the operations of the company, sources in the business empire told The STAR.

As executive director, Kyle is part of the executive committee or execom, together with Tan’s son-in-law Ramon San Pascual, who was appointed president and CEO of Eton in 2019, and Tan’s daughter Vivienne, sources also said.

The COO position, previously occupied by another Tan daughter, Karlu Tan-Say – who stepped down early this year – has not been officially filled, but for now, Eton executives report directly to the execom, sources said.

Kyle, the younger brother of Tanduay president Lucio “Han” Tan III, is an engineer. He worked as software engineer for companies such as Cisco, Siemens and Microsoft.

He graduated magna cum laude in his bachelor’s degree in computer science and computer engineering from the University of Southern California where he also finished his master’s degree in computer science.

Eton will hold its annual stockholders meeting on April 29 and additional changes in management or in the board of directors may be announced during the meeting.

In its meeting held on March 14, the Nomination and Remuneration Committee of Eton’s board of directors approved the following nominees for election to the board in the forthcoming stockholders meeting: Lucio Tan, Cirilo Noel, Ramon San Pascual, Karlu Tan-Say, Michael Tan, Vivienne Tan, Juanita Tan Lee and Kyle Tan, according to company documents.

For independent directors, the approved nominees are Wilfrido Sanchez (incumbent), Mary Ng (incumbent) and Elaine Co, who is also an independent director at PNB Holdings Corp. Johnip Cua and Florencia Tarriela, currently among Eton’s independent directors, were not nominated to the board for the ensuing year, documents also showed.

Along with the changes in Eton, the company’s 50-50 joint venture with Ayala Land Inc., ALI Eton Property Development Corp. also saw changes in its board of directors during its recent board meeting. The positions of Cua, Michael Tan and Karlu Tan-Say as Eton’s representatives to the board of ALI Eton, have been filled by Mary Ng, Vivienne Tan and Kyle Tan.

Sought for comment, ALI president Bernard Vincent Dy, said the project of ALI Eton, which is the P53-billion Parklinks township along C-5, is on track despite the changes.

“There will be no impact on the timetable,” Dy told The STAR over the weekend.

The project was targeted to be developed in phases, over a period of 10 years from the time the project was launched in 2018.

Eton Philippines is the property arm of the Lucio Tan Group. It is a subsidiary of LT Group Inc., Tan’s listed conglomerate, together with Philippine National Bank, Tanduay Distillers Inc., Asia Brewery and Fortune Tobacco which is a partner in PMFTC.

Eton reported a net income of P550 million in 2021, 31 percent lower than the P802 million recorded a year ago due to the decline in residential unit sales and lower leasing income.