THE government will allow the sale of government-controlled United Coconut Planters Bank (UCPB) to foreign interests and would welcome their participation in the scheduled sale or privatization of the lender sometime in 2015.
Finance Undersecretary Jose Emmanuel Reverente of the Privatization Management Office said the prospective bidders for the sale of UCPB “don’t have to be Filipino,” since the enactment of Republic Act 10641 in July is already in force to allow full foreign ownership of local banks.
Reverente said the Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG), which has effective control of UCPB, is still finalizing the criteria for the qualification of the bidders in the planned public auction.
“We’re helping PCGG to privatize UCPB and they’re still coming up with the criteria for the bidders. They just want that UCPB would end up in capable hands,” Reverente said in a spot interview at the Philippine Economic Briefing held earlier this week at the Philippine International Convention Center.
Late last year, the stockholders of UCPB approved the increase in the authorized capital stock of the bank to P40 billion, allowing the lender to invite a new strategic investor to increase its capital and comply with the Basel 3 Accord mandating higher capitalization requirement for banks everywhere.
PCGG Chairman Andres Bautista was earlier quoted as saying the public auction for ownership and control of UCPB should be completed by 2015 to avoid possible political complications that could crop up if the bidding was scheduled too close to the 2016 presidential elections.
The original plan was to hold the public auction in the first half this year.
Local banks that then signified their intention to participate at the public bidding were some of the country’s biggest such as BDO Unibank Inc. and the Philippine National Bank.