This developed as doubts were raised over Alvarez’s financial capacity to make the bid for Philphos even with the reported backing of the Republic of Nauru which owns 50 percent of the fertilizer firm.
APT said yesterday that Alvarez is still taken keen enough to adjust his bid for the shares estimated by government to be worth at least P4.2 billion, representing the Philippines government’s interest in the company.
According to an APT source, Alvarez wants more time to decide how he can adjust his P2.5 billion bid price for the Philphos shares.
Alvarez is the incumbent chairman of Philphos, representing the government of Nauru. although he made the bids as part of a consortium, the business is known to be bidding on behalf of Nauru.
On his own, Alvarez owns Columbian Motors Co. and Tritran Inc. as well as other businesses.
However, Alvarez is also reportedly deep in debt, owing at least P451.5 million to the shuttered Urban Bank Inc. (UBI) where he was recorded to have defaulted on his loans.
In a reply-affidavit filed by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas and Philippine Deposit Insurance Corp. before the Department of Justice against UBI, it was indicated that Columbian owed P264 million in principal loans. Its loan with other banks, the document said, were up for restructuring as the company was forced to renew its promissory notes at least two to three times.
The document revealed further that Alvarez personally owed UBI P27.698 million and had defaulted eight months in interest payment.
The Committee on Privatization (COP), however, still gave APT the green light to go into a negotiated sale for the Philphos shares after the failed bid in October.
During the auction, none of the bidders met the P4.2 billion indicative price set by the COP and even the P3.4 billion discounted price that the APT said government was willing to accept.
The consortium headed by Alvarez made the highest bid of P2.5 billion but the APT did not declare a winner, saying that even the highest bid was lower by more than 20 percent of the government’s indicative price of P4.2 billion.Alvarez represented Delphi Holdings Corp. but the businessman refused to name the other members of the consortium except for a certain Michimin Corp. which he described as the sixth largest trading firm in Japan.
According to the source, Alvarez had expressed willingness to raise his group’s bid to P3 billion but the APT would have to seek the approval of the COP before accepting the bid.
Alvarez had earlier blamed APT for not accepting the Republic of Nauru’s offer last year to buy out the Philippine government’s stake at P3 billion which he said would have settled the matter there and then.
Philphos was established in 1982 and is touted to be Asia‘s largest and most modern phosphatic fertilizer plant built on a 180-hectare complex in Isabel, Leyte. Plant capacity is over a million metric tons of high-quality fertilizers.