In the hope of changing his mind, the board offered to give him the chairmanship of the bank, or the position of chairman and chief executive officer, and a host of other juicy offers. It did not help as "he had strategic personal plans long outlined leading to trying out his luck with a foreign institution." Tan joined the bank on April 10, 2002 after PNB’s two major shareholders, namely, the government-owned Philippine Deposit Insurance Corp. (PDIC) and the Lucio Tan Group invited him to take over the top management post of the country’s national bank.
At that time, the PDIC had just infused P7.8 billion in equity, in the form of preferred shares in the bank, in line with its five-year rehabilitation program.
Lorenzo’s principal mandate was to lead the five-year rehabilitation efforts and turn around the financial performance from losses to profits.
He is credited with the adoption of the "good bank-bad bank" strategy that successfully enabled PNB to turn in a modest profit of P168 million in 2003 after five years of successive losses.
Based on preliminary unaudited financial statements, the 2004 net income doubled to approximately P353 million.
Tan attracted a number of highly qualified senior officers from other banks to join him in the rehabilitation program. Together with the existing cadre of seasoned officers, PNB has in place a strong management team to sustain the growth in resources and profitability of the bank.