The mass-market housing developer had been operating under Ace Sotto, who stepped into the acting President/CEO role after 8990 Holdings's [HOUSE 7.40 0.14%] previous President/CEO, Willie Uy, passed away in late 2019 from a heart attack. According to the HOUSE press release, Ace Sotto resigned as acting President, CEO, and as a director of HOUSE, during a special board meeting on September 2. The communications around this event frame it as “sudden”.
HOUSE’s board appointed Anthony Vincent Sotto to replace Ace Sotto as President and CEO and to fill Ace Sotto’s seat on the board of directors. Ace Sotto will remain on with HOUSE as the Chief Operating Officer, the position that Ace Sotto held in 2019 before he was elevated to Acting President/CEO.
MB BOTTOM-LINE
What I would have given to be a butiki on the wall of that special board meeting. I don’t have any information that goes beyond what the public has been provided through the press releases, news reports, and disclosures, so from the outside looking in, it appears as though HOUSE has (so far) successfully navigated the complicated business continuity challenges that come from the sudden passing of a longtime leader. In this case, it seemed like it was not HOUSE’s intention (or Ace Sotto’s, for that matter) to have Ace Sotto remain indefinitely in the President/CEO role, as he was always referred to in news reports and the company’s own disclosures with the “Acting” modifier.
Acting title or not, though, it seems like this resignation caught everyone by surprise, and left the board in a position to select a new leader for the second time in two years. Will HOUSE’s new President/CEO continues the company’s strong earnings performance, but figure out a way to translate that into stock price performance? Asking for a friend.
--
Merkado Barkada is a free daily newsletter on the PSE, investing, and business in the Philippines. You can subscribe to the newsletter or follow on Twitter to receive the full daily updates.
Merkado Barkada's opinions are provided for informational purposes only, and should not be considered a recommendation to buy or sell any particular stock. These daily articles are not updated with new information, so each investor must do his or her own due diligence before trading, as the facts and figures in each particular article may have changed.