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Ovialand eyes bigger IPO, awaits better market conditions — president

REAL ESTATE developer Ovialand, Inc. is considering a bigger initial public offering (IPO) but is waiting for more favorable market conditions before proceeding with its public listing, its president said.

“[It would be] more than what we had initially filed for. The initial filing was up to P2.2 billion. When we had to defer our IPO, we put all our efforts into still growing the company. So we have growth in 2023,” Ovialand President and Chief Executive Officer Pammy Olivares-Vital told reporters on Jan. 29.

“We expect substantial growth again in 2024, so that number will most likely be changing,” she added.

In June last year, Ovialand announced the postponement of its planned P2.2 billion IPO, citing poor market conditions.

Ovialand is currently observing the market’s response to planned IPOs, including SM Prime Holdings’ real estate investment trust (REIT) offer and ports tycoon Enrique K. Razon, Jr.’s Prime Infrastructure listing, Ms. Vital said.

The company will decide on its own listing plan based on the market conditions and the success of these offerings, she said.

“That’s the advice we’re getting from the bank that once those are going to be successful, then that’s the signal that foreign investors are back, and we’ll have a better chance of having a good IPO.”

On Monday, Ovialand partnered with Takara Leben to bring more premium affordable homes to Filipino families. The partnership’s first project will be the 6.5-hectare Savana South development in Laguna, which will have 657 homes that will generate P1.97 billion worth of sales over four years.

Ovialand and Takara Leben will establish a joint venture company to serve as project developer. The partnership also seeks to develop at least five projects within three years.

Ovialand has developments in Southern Luzon and Bulacan. Some of its developments include Savana, Santevi, and Sannera in Laguna; Caliya in Quezon; and Terrazza de Sto. Tomas in Batangas; as well as Seriya in Bulacan.

Established in August 1989, Takara Leben is a Japanese company involved in the development and sale of condominiums, leasing of real estate, and distribution of real estate. — Revin Mikhael D. Ochave

Artificial intelligence integration to improve job matching

UNSPLASH

ARTIFICIAL intelligence (AI) is expected to improve the search and hiring process for both jobseekers and employers, online employment marketplace group SEEK said.

SEEK has integrated its JobStreet and JobsDB marketplaces under an AI-powered platform to improve search recommendations and data processing, it said.

“This new technology allows us to really scale up and move faster with more features the Philippine market can expect to come in the next months and years ahead,” Dannah Majarocon, managing director for the Philippines at JobStreet by SEEK, said at a briefing on Tuesday.

“[It] can now seamlessly match them based on specific skills, job roles, and career aspirations, which is crucial in the Philippines’ highly dynamic and evolving employment landscape,” she added.

Improvements include personalized recommendations, processing larger datasets from candidates’ profiles, job ad descriptions, and employers’ past behaviors.

The new natural language search feature to be rolled out this year also allows job queries through phrases or a sentence.

“They do not need to rely solely on keyword phrases,” JobStreet by SEEK said in a statement.

The use of AI on the job marketplace can help boost the hiring process in the Philippines, Ms. Majarocon said.

“Unemployment and underemployment have improved, but it still remains to be a challenge for the Philippines,” she said.

Preliminary results of the Philippine Statistics Authority’s Labor Force Survey showed the unemployment rate fell to 3.6% in November from 4.2% in the previous month and in November 2022.

The underemployment rate remained at 11.7% for a second straight month in November. Year on year, it was lower than the 14.4% in November 2022.

“The volume of hirers has doubled from pre-pandemic, and we anticipate that this is going to continue forward,” Ms. Majarocon said.

There was a 45% growth in average monthly active employers on JobStreet Philippines last year, she said.

“We also see a lot more active candidates, employed or unemployed. It makes sense to give more access to options for our fellow Filipinos,” she added.

She noted that 61% of employers are confident that the job market will be more active in the first half of the year, with 71% planning to increase their permanent employee head count.

Hybrid work has dominated work arrangements in the country, with employers exploring other benefits and allowances to attract and retain talent, she added.

To aid in upskilling, Jobstreet launched its seekMAX digital platform last year, which provides training resources and enables a community for knowledge sharing across industries. — Miguel Hanz L. Antivola

X lifts ban on Taylor Swift searches after spread of fake explicit images

TAYLOR SWIFT

SOCIAL-MEDIA company X lifted the ban on searches for Taylor Swift Monday evening, after blocking users from searching for her following the spread of fake sexually explicit images of the pop singer on the social media site last week.

The search has been reactivated and the social media platform “will continue to be vigilant for any attempt to spread this content and will remove it if we find it,” Joe Benarroch, head of business operations at X, said in a statement on Monday

Searches for Taylor Swift’s name on Sunday afternoon on the social media platform formerly known as Twitter yielded the error message, “Something went wrong. Try reloading.” X had called the measure a temporary action done with “abundance of caution.”

One image of Ms. Swift, who was named Time Magazine’s “Person of the Year” in 2023, shared on X was viewed 47 million times before the account was suspended, according to a New York Times report.

The ban on searches came after White House weighed in on Friday, calling the fake images “alarming” and highlighting that social media companies have a responsibility to prevent the spread of such misinformation.

Since billionaire Elon Musk acquired Twitter in 2022, he has faced criticism for his own controversial posts, prompting many advertisers on the platform to pull back spending out of fear of being associated with harmful content. — Reuters

Abuse of discretion?

PHILSTAR FILE PHOTO / BOY SANTOS

THE NATIONAL Federation of UV Express, Inc. went to court recently to force the government to take motorcycle “taxis” off the streets. The group, composed of UV Express operators, wants a Mandaluyong trial court to stop the ongoing government trial temporarily allowing the use of motorcycles as public transportation. The group claims two-wheeled taxis are stealing their customers.

Angkas, Joy Ride, and Move It are currently offering motorcycle (MC) taxi services under a pilot study of the Land Transportation Office (LTO). UV Express operators, in a report on GMA News Online, claimed that over a third of their revenues were already affected by these MC taxis, and adding more MC taxi operators would halve their revenues.

Their issue? Other than directly competing with them for commuters, the UV Express operators claimed that it was unfair for MC taxis to continue operating without franchises. Other public transportation like jeepneys and buses, UV Express, Grab cars, and even school and tourist buses all secure franchises from the Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board or LTFRB.

If memory serves me, the pilot study for MC taxis started in 2019. Angkas, I believe, started even earlier. I am uncertain when it should have ended. But the fact is, four years later, the operation of MC taxis is still under a “pilot” program. In short, a temporary permit. And Congress has not passed a law to regularize the operation of motorcycles as public transport. Tricycles are different as they get franchises from local governments and not LTFRB.

In a column in October 2023, I already posed the following questions: Do we need more motorcycle taxis, not just in Metro Manila but in other parts of the country? Based on what parameters or data? And, how should we go about “regulating” them and their fares? And how do we best “institutionalize” the MC taxi service? Should they be required to obtain franchises as well?

MC taxis have now become a permanent fixture on Metro Manila roads. A lot of commuters rely on them. And while safety standards and regulations have been set, it does not seem right that the service continues to exist merely on temporary permits under a “pilot” program. The LTO, and maybe the LTFRB, should have four years of data by now. An informed decision can already be made on the matter.

Reader Rene Santiago, an international consultant on transportation, past President of the Transportation Science Society of the Philippines, and a Fellow of the Foundation for Economic Freedom, e-mailed me previously to note that MC taxis, or “two-wheeled improvised public transport of local origin” have been around for about three decades — “hiding in plain sight, so to speak.”

Santiago wrote, “Habal-habal [MC taxis] only became a national concern when Angkas rode into the urban transport scene… It forced a national agency to launch a pilot project allowing an arguably illegitimate mode to operate — on a very limited scale. A welcome but perplexing move: launching a pilot study supervised by a technical committee devoid of a hypothesis, lacking in criteria on when (and how) to end a trial period.”

He added, “On the other hand, a science-based pilot study would have to re-examine the necessity (or superfluity) of government regulation over a transport mode that has thrived over the years without one. And realize that the experiment has been going on, successfully, for three decades.” Outside of Metro Manila, he said, “there is overwhelming support” for MC taxis, and “no strident call to franchise, control, much less ban, the service.”

In this line, perhaps a court case is timely. At this point, it needs to be ascertained whether the LTO, and perhaps the LTFRB, are abusing their discretion in allowing MC taxis to operate seemingly indefinitely under the guise of pilot testing and without a franchise. In the same manner, it also needs to be ascertained whether parties like UV Express have the legal standing to question the continued existence of MC taxis.

Moreover, the government should already end its “pilot” study and come out with its findings and recommendations with respect to the operation of MC taxis nationwide. Rightly or wrongly, I favor some form of regulation. Not necessarily national franchising, but perhaps safety and fare regulation. LGU “franchising,” like for tricycles, may not work as MC taxis go beyond local boundaries.

Santiago argued against LTFRB franchising and regulation given that there are an estimated 14 million motorcycles on the road, with roughly 1.4 million operating as MC taxis full-time or part-time. He also noted that for road safety, “economic regulation is the wrong tool. The correct one is technical regulation via the 3 Es (engineering, enforcement, education). Annual vehicle inspections should be strengthened.”

He added that the “ideal regulatory framework” should have the following: “Perform criminal and driving background checks of taxi drivers; Ensure drivers have valid licenses and competences; Lay out basic safety standards for vehicles; Require that drivers are adequately insured; Real-time monitoring quality by tracking drivers using GPS; Users are able to communicate complaints more easily and rapidly, and vice-versa; Drivers and passengers can rate each other after every ride (two-way feedback mechanism); Optimize travel path, distance and time for taxi response and passenger journey via an algorithm.”

Obviously, most of these things are already available via the app-based MC taxis that are “ordered” by commuters through their mobile phones. The thing is, these apps are all privately developed and operated. And the information and data gathered through these apps may be shared with government agencies.

In this sense, Santiago argued that the “best move” for the government is to “get out of the way, and let the market work its magic.” And I believe this is where Congress, and the courts, should come in with a proper determination whether MC taxis should be required franchises, local or national. Technology and current developments will continue to outpace regulatory frameworks for land transport for years to come unless the government gets ahead and opts for practical but dynamic regulation of public conveyances.

 

MARVIN TORT is a former managing editor of BusinessWorld, and a former chairman of the Philippine Press Council
matort @yahoo.com

Sotheby’s defeats Russian oligarch in art fraud case

A SCENE from the 2021 documentary The Lost Leonardo

NEW YORK — A federal jury on Tuesday ruled in favor of Sotheby’s at a trial in which the Russian billionaire oligarch Dmitry Rybolovlev accused the auction house of defrauding him out of tens of millions of dollars in art sales.

Mr. Rybolovlev accused Sotheby’s of conspiring with Swiss art dealer Yves Bouvier to trick him into paying inflated prices for four works including Salvator Mundi, a depiction of Christ attributed to Leonardo da Vinci that would become the most expensive artwork sold at auction.

Sotheby’s, which is privately held, had long maintained that it had no knowledge that Mr. Bouvier might have lied, and that it was not liable for his dealings with Mr. Rybolovlev.

Mr. Bouvier was not a defendant and has maintained he did nothing wrong.

Mr. Rybolovlev, 57, is worth $6.4 billion after building his fortune in potash fertilizer, according to Forbes magazine. He is also majority owner of the AS Monaco soccer team, though has been reported this year to be exploring a sale.

Daniel Kornstein, a lawyer for Mr. Rybolovlev, said the case “achieved our goal of shining a light on the lack of transparency that plagues the art market. That secrecy made it difficult to prove a complex aiding and abetting fraud case.”

Sotheby’s said the verdict reaffirmed its commitment to upholding the highest standards of integrity, ethics and professionalism, and reflected a “glaring lack of evidence” that it cheated Mr. Rybolovlev.

The case has been among the highest-profile art fraud disputes in recent years, offering a view into an often secretive industry where wealthy buyers sometimes don’t know who they are buying from.

Jurors in Manhattan federal court needed less than a day to reach a verdict, in a trial that lasted about three weeks.

US District Judge Jesse Furman had last March let Mr. Rybolovlev pursue fraud-based claims over the Da Vinci, and works by Gustav Klimt, Rene Magritte, and Amedeo Modigliani.

Mr. Rybolovlev originally sued over 15 pieces of world-class art for which he paid more than $1 billion, and accused Mr. Bouvier of charging hundreds of millions of dollars in hidden markups.

Judge Furman dismissed fraud-based claims over the other 11 works, including art from Pablo Picasso, Auguste Rodin, and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec.

Mr. Rybolovlev was allowed to sue over Salvator Mundi even though his ownership had proven unusually profitable.

According to court papers, Mr. Bouvier bought the Da Vinci for $83 million in 2013 and sold it the next day to Rybolovlev for $127.5 million.

Mr. Rybolovlev went on to sell Salvator Mundi at Christie’s in 2017 for $450.3 million, a record price for an artwork at auction. — Reuters

Philippines has third-fastest growth among world’s top 40 largest economies

THE PHILIPPINE Statistics Authority (PSA) released the fourth quarter (Q4) 2023 GDP data yesterday — it showed that GDP grew by 5.6%. Full year 2023 growth was also 5.6% — good.

For this column, I monitored the growth of the top 40 largest economies in the world, those with GDPs of at least $700 billion in purchasing power parity (PPP) values in 2022. Two of the countries had no quarterly GDP data: Bangladesh and Pakistan. One country had data for Q1 and Q2 2023 only (for an average of 3.8%), the United Arab Emirates (UAE). So these three countries are not included among the 37 countries listed in Table 1.

I grouped the countries into three. Those in Group A have full 2023 data with growth of 2.5% and above. Those in Group B grew by 2.4% and below. And those in Group C had data for Q1-Q3 2023 only, with no Q4 data available yet. The results are interesting.

1. The Philippines has the fastest growth among the countries with full 2023 data. If those in Group C are included, the Philippines had the third-fastest growth after India and Iran.

2. The Philippines’ 5.6% growth in 2023 is high growth over a high base (which was the high growth in 2022) and hence, there is no so-called “base effect.” China’s 5.2% growth in 2023 is high growth over a low base, since it had low growth of 3% in 2022.

3. The European economies, except Spain and Turkey, are either crawling at 0.1% to 1.5% growth, or are contracting (Germany, Sweden, Ireland, Poland). Other European countries not in the top 40, those ranked among the 41st to 50th largest economies, are also contracting — Austria (-0.6%), the Czech Republic (-0.5%), and Finland (-0.5%) (see Table 1).

The US growth of 2.5% seems deceptive, as it is due to heavily debt-driven government spending. The US federal debt has increased from $31 trillion in 2022 to $34 trillion in 2023, a huge $3 trillion increase in just one year. In their fiscal year 2024 budget of about $6.7 trillion, $1 trillion is earmarked for interest payments alone. Meaning their leeway for public infrastructure and social services is now drastically affected. As of Jan. 29, 2024, the US federal debt was $31.14 trillion.

HIGH GROWTH IN HOUSEHOLD SPENDING, INVESTMENTS, SERVICES SECTORS
GDP is measured in two ways: by expenditure or demand side, and by industrial origin or supply side. GDP by demand is equal to GDP by supply.

In the Philippines’ GDP by demand, household consumption constitutes 73% of GDP and it grew 5.6% in 2023. Investments grew by 5.4%, but government consumption tanked at 0.4%. This is mainly due to base effect.

Budget Secretary Amenah F. Pangandaman noted that: “There were some large government spending and subsidies in Q4 2022, like high vaccine procurement and ‘Libreng Sakay’ for Metro Manila buses, that were downscaled or discontinued in Q4 2023 to help control the deficit and borrowings. That fiscal consolidation move will give us wider fiscal space this year to continue high government spending on infrastructure. Public infrastructure last year remained high but is counted in investment or capital formation where there was high growth of 11.2% in Q4.” Good decision there, Madam Secretary.

In GDP by supply, the services sector constitutes 61% of GDP and it grew by 7.2% last year. The industry sector makes up 29% of GDP and it grew at a modest 3.6% (see Table 2).

The world economy will remain in a bad shape this year, led by the US and Europe, but Asian economies will anchor modest to high growth levels, led by India, China, Indonesia, Japan, Iran, Vietnam, and the Philippines.

A debt-financed growth is unsustainable and will lead to the bubble bursting in the short to medium term. The economic team led by Finance Secretary Ralph Recto must continue to aim for sustained high growth of 6% and up, a low inflation rate, a low interest rate, and a low unemployment rate of below 4%.

Secretary Recto’s “no new taxes” plan for this year and possibly beyond is a brilliant move. Allow the households and companies to keep more of their income and savings because they will spend or invest it anyway, mostly in the domestic economy.

 

BIENVENIDO S. OPLAS, JR.is the president of Bienvenido S. Oplas, Jr. Research Consultancy Services, and Minimal Government Thinkers. He is an international fellow of the Tholos Foundation.

minimalgovernment@gmail.com

Concepcion Industrial earnings up 86% in 2023

LISTED Concepcion Industrial Corp. (CIC) said its consolidated earnings grew by 86% to P667.3 million last year, led by higher net sales.

The company said in a regulatory filing on Wednesday that its full-year net sales rose 11% to P14.7 billion carried by strong fourth quarter results.

During the fourth quarter, CIC recorded a 195% increase in consolidated earnings to P177.9 million on the back of better margins and solid sales performance.

The company added that its net sales for the October to December period grew by 9% year on year to P3.8 billion due to sales growth in its commercial business. The commercial business was driven by heat, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) equipment sales and progress in both air conditioning and elevator projects.

Net sales of CIC’s consumer business saw a 1% decline to P2.4 billion due to weaker demand for window room air conditioners and direct cool refrigerators.

“CIC has shown time and again our ability to overcome challenges as our resilient business allows us to adapt quickly and pivot when the situation calls for it. As we reflect on our achievements in 2023, we look ahead with opti-mism, ready to welcome opportunities and face the challenges of 2024,” CIC Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Raul Joseph A. Concepcion said.

“CIC is well positioned to capitalize on emerging opportunities, and our commitment to innovation, customer satisfaction, and operational excellence remains firm. We continue to embark on a promising journey, confident in our ability to drive growth and deliver value to our stakeholders,” he added.

Shares of CIC fell by 94 centavos or 6.91% to P12.66 apiece on Wednesday. — Revin Mikhael D. Ochave

Real-time digital payment system means business for Philippines

UNSPLASH

By Leslie Choo

REAL-TIME payments allow the transfer of money between businesses and consumers within seconds instead of days. This instantaneous process enables a more seamless transaction, improving liquidity and overall market effi-ciency toward unlocking economic growth.

According to the 2023 Prime Time for Real-Time report published by ACI Worldwide, 195 billion real-time payment transactions were recorded globally in 2022 and are forecasted to reach 511.7 billion by 2027, representing a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 21.3%. In the Philippines, real-time payment transactions are expected to grow to 1.5 billion by 2027 from 625 million in 2022, representing a CAGR of 18.7%.

A PROMISING GREENFIELD MARKET FOR DIGITAL PAYMENTS

As one of the fastest-growing economies in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) region, the Philippines posted a high gross domestic product (GDP) growth rate of 7.6% in 2022 and 6% in the third quarter of 2023. With a population of more than 116 million, the Philippine economy is driven by a digital-savvy citizenry with an internet penetration rate of 73.1% of the total population. But even with this tech-forward populace, the country’s banking penetration is relatively low at 56%.

Recognizing the pivotal role of digital finance in fueling economic growth, the Philippine government is making significant strides in its push for digitization. Under its Digital Payments Transformation Roadmap, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) aims to shift 50% of total retail transactions to electronic channels and increase the number of Filipino adults with bank accounts to 70% in 2023. InstaPay and PESONet recorded 557 million transactions as of August 2023, 38.9% higher than the 401 million in the same period a year prior.

Against the backdrop of a robust economy and the government’s push for digitization lies a burgeoning, but still largely untapped, demand for digital financial services in the Philippines.

REMITTANCE AND CROSS-BORDER PAYMENTS AS KEY GROWTH ENGINES

Remittances are an important factor supporting domestic consumer spending in the Philippines. According to BSP, personal cash remittances grew by 3.6% to $36.14 billion in 2022, accounting for 8.9% of the Philippines’ GDP. The strong demand for cross-border digital remittances and a large unbanked population represents huge potential for banks in the Philippines to capitalize on real-time payments as a growth catalyst.

Enhancing the efficiency of cross-border payments will help lessen frictions such as high remittance costs, lengthy processing times, and inadequate transparency regarding service fees and processing status. BSP — with the central banks of Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam — established the Regional Payment Connectivity (RPC) initiative to strengthen and enhance collaboration on payment connectivity by developing faster, cheaper, more transparent, and more inclusive cross-border payments.

Cross-border real-time payments encourage the use of local currency and are vital in strengthening financial resilience in the region. In the long term, cross-border payment cooperation in the region can keep the countries’ currency exchange rates more stable, reducing the reliance on external currencies such as the US dollar. When regional cooperation between countries becomes more economically integrated and sustainable, it stimulates the growth of ASEAN as a whole.

REAL-TIME PAYMENTS ARE TABLE STAKES FOR BANKS

Philippine banks are realizing that real-time payment enablement is more than just a technological upgrade; it is important for customer acquisition and retention, innovation, and efficiency. Traditional banks running on siloed legacy banking systems often lack integration capabilities and require manual processes, leading to inefficiencies and errors. With the industry moving towards the ISO 20022 messaging standard, banks should look to overhaul their systems and take advantage of the opportunities generated by the enriched data to capture customer insights. An ISO 20022-native real-time payments system improves processing time and accuracy, enhances security, and facilitates effective real-time controls against fraud and money laundering.

Digital overlays are integrated value-added services that drive new sophisticated use cases for consumers and businesses and help expand the reach and ubiquity of real-time payment services. An example is Malaysia’s DuitNow Request, which allows payees to send a digital payment request to collect funds from a payer via e-wallet, mobile, or Internet banking. This is particularly useful for businesses that have a variable payment amount or need to re-quest payment for services rendered. With Request to Pay, banks can offer an alternative, digital mode of payment acceptance to the end merchants, billers, and corporates that provides businesses real-time visibility of their in-coming payments while lowering transaction costs, fraud, and disputes.

In Thailand, the National Interbank Transaction Management and Exchange (ITMX) implemented ACI’s real-time payments solution to modernize its bulk payments processing system. Its critical payments infrastructure is utilized for corporate payments, including payroll, dividends, interest, loans, securities, government bonds, tax refunds, goods, and services. Real-time bulk payments can assist with government disbursements such as the senior citizen welfare fund, farmer’s subsidies, COVID-19 relief fund, and emergency support measures. However, for this to be successful, processors and banks need to be backed by scalable and high-performing solutions.

Similar to the Philippines, Indonesia previously faced challenges with slow transactions, high fees, and limited accessibility in remote areas. The Indonesia Fast Payment System (BI-FAST) was introduced by the country’s central bank in December 2021 to transform Indonesia’s payment landscape. BI-FAST serves as an integral part of the Indonesia Payment System Blueprint 2025 vision for inclusive economic growth. ACI provides the central infrastructure for Indonesia’s BI-FAST as well as the gateway for banks and multi-tenant aggregators. BI-FAST, one of the world’s largest real-time payment systems, which will incorporate 135 banks, is accelerating the digital transformation of Indonesia’s economy, driving economic growth and bringing millions of unbanked citizens into the formal financial sector.

By looking at other ASEAN countries’ experiences and successful use cases, the Philippines can enhance its real-time payment system to enable faster, more efficient, and secure transactions, ultimately driving economic growth and financial inclusion.

SECURITY BANK PARTNERS WITH ACI

ACI partnered with Security Bank Corp. in the Philippines to build the bank’s next-generation cloud-native enterprise payment hub, a single platform for retail and corporate banking. Through the partnership, ACI is helping Security Bank realize a unified, omnichannel payment experience and bolstering the bank’s technology transformation journey to meet evolving customer requirements and demands. The new modernized payment hub empowers Security Bank to roll out innovative products and services to customers faster and add new payment types to its core infrastructure seamlessly and cost-effectively.

Guided by our mission to accelerate global commerce through real-time payments, ACI is committed to helping Philippines banks harness the full potential of real-time payments and provide Filipinos with a modernized, secure, and delightful banking experience.

 

Leslie Choo is a ACI Worldwide’s senior vice-president and managing director for Asia Pacific.

Chita Rivera, West Side Story Broadway star, 91

CHITA RIVERA — PLAYBILL.COM

NEW YORK — Chita Rivera, the musical theater legend and multiple Tony winner who created the role of Puerto Rican firebrand Anita on Broadway in West Side Story and other memorable characters, has died at the age of 91.

The petite, raven-haired dancer, singer and actress made history when she became the first Hispanic woman to receive a prestigious Kennedy Center Honor in 2002. She also received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Barack Obama in 2009.

“It is with great sadness that Lisa Mordente, the daughter of Chita Rivera, announces the death of her beloved mother who died peacefully on Tuesday, Jan. 30, 2024 in New York after a brief illness,” her daughter Lisa said in a statement.

Ms. Rivera was nominated for 10 Tony awards and won twice. She also received a special Tony for Lifetime Achievement in 2018 for a career that spanned nearly seven decades.

Celebrated playwright Terrence McNally, who wrote the book for Ms. Rivera’s Tony-winning roles in The Rink opposite Liza Minnelli in 1984 and Kiss of the Spider Woman a decade later, described her as “a walking history book of the golden age of American musical theater.”

From the chorus in 1950s Broadway musicals Guys and Dolls and Can-Can, Rivera moved to center stage as murderess Velma Kelly in the original 1975 Broadway production of Chicago and created the role of Rose in the surprise hit Bye, Bye Birdie with Dick Van Dyke in 1960.

But it was her portrayal of the sassy, hip-swaying Anita sashaying across the stage singing “America” or warning her friend about “A Boy Like That” in West Side Story that made Rivera a star.

“To be there when those geniuses created that show was something that is a blessing, you know. It’s something that you can never, ever forget,” Ms. Rivera once said about the groundbreaking musical by Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim.

NOBODY LIKE CHITA
“When she let those limbs loose she was a one-woman showstopper and every choreographer wanted her,” award-winning producer and director Harold Prince once said. “There is nobody who can dance, sing and act like Chita Rivera.”

Rivera was born Dolores Conchita Figueroa del Rivero on Jan. 23, 1933 in Washington, D.C. Her father, Puerto Rican musician Pedro Julio Figueroa del Rivero, died when she was seven.

One of five children, she studied ballet from a young age and won a scholarship to George Balanchine’s School of American Ballet in New York. She was still a teenager when, on a whim, she auditioned with a friend for the touring company of the musical Call Me Madam and landed a role.

“I always tell kids today never to look down on the chorus and working there,” Ms. Rivera said in an interview with the website thestage.co.uk in 2015. “It’s an extraordinary place to be — you will learn everything you will eventually have to do.”

In 1957 she married Tony Mordente, an actor and dancer in the show. She was such an integral part of West Side Story that its London production had to be delayed until after she gave birth to her only child, Lisa, in 1958.

Ms. Rivera’s career was interrupted in 1986 when she suffered a compound leg fracture in a car accident in New York while appearing in Jerry’s Girls. Doctors had to insert many pins to repair her shattered limb.

“Just like the movies, they told me I would never dance again,” she told Variety in 2005. “And just like the movies, here I am I don’t know how many performances later.”

REBOUND
After rigorous physical therapy Ms. Rivera not only recovered from the accident but went on to win her second Tony for Kiss of the Spider Woman in 1993 and scored another nomination for Nine, opposite Antonio Banderas, a decade later.

Ms. Rivera also appeared regularly on TV entertainment shows and was in the film version of Sweet Charity in 1969 with Shirley MacLaine and Chicago in 2002.

In her mid-70s, when other dancers had slowed down or retired, she starred in Chita Rivera: The Dancer’s Life, a stage show that combined music, dance, and storytelling.

“This bona fide Broadway icon … looks as fit as a well-tuned fiddle,” Time Out magazine said in its 2005 review of the show.

A decade later, Ms. Rivera appeared in a PBS television retrospective of her career called Chita Rivera: A Lot of Livin’ To Do. The same year she earned her 10th Tony nomination as a revenge-seeking millionaire in the musical The Visit. It was the last of several collaborations with the songwriting team of John Kander and Fred Webb.

“You really never know what the next day brings you,” Ms. Rivera told the senior advocacy group AARP in a 2011 interview. “I have a very young outlook. I don’t think you know how much you can do until you try.” — Reuters

China merges hundreds of rural banks amid mounting financial risks

CARLOS DE SOUZA-UNSPLASH

China is embarking on its biggest consolidation in the banking industry by merging hundreds of rural lenders into regional behemoths amid growing signs of financial stress.

After engineering mergers of rural cooperatives and rural commercial banks in at least seven provinces since 2022, policy makers pinpointed tackling risks at the $6.7-trillion sector as one of its top priorities for this year. That means another wave of consolidation is on the way across the nation.

China’s banking industry has been weighed down by a litany of troubles over the past years, including a deepening slump in the real estate market and an overall fragile economy. The 2,100 banks in the rural coop-erative system saw their bad-loan ratio stand at 3.48% at the end of 2022, more than twice as high as that for the whole sector.

“It’s where risks are the most concentrated among smaller financial institutions, so China is pushing the reform at a faster pace,” said Liu Xiaochun, deputy director of think-tank Shanghai Finance Institute. “And one key solution to resolving the risks is through mergers and reorganizations.”

The stakes are high politically as well. Hundreds of people protested in central Henan province in 2022 after a multibillion-dollar scam at several local lenders left them clamoring for their savings.

Jason Bedford, who predicted earlier troubles at China’s regional banks that rocked markets in 2019, said the rural cooperatives are “probably the least transparent part of the banking system.” China has disposed of bad debt equivalent to about 13% of its gross domestic product in its last big cleanup of the banking system during 2016 and 2022, he said.

“We’re left with only a toxic tail of significantly smaller institutions,” said Mr. Bedford, a former analyst with Bridgewater Associates and UBS Group AG. While the contagion risk across the financial system is seen limited, these lenders can be “very disruptive” within their specific regions should they blow up.

While China’s multi-year crackdown on risks has halved the total number of high-risk lenders to 337 by June, some 96% of them were small rural commercial banks and credit cooperatives as well as village and county banks, ac-cording to the central bank.

First created in early 1950s, the cooperatives were in their early days mutually funded, collectively owned institutions by farmers in socialist communes. The majority of them had been transformed into rural commercial banks over the years.

While the system plays a crucial role in lending to underdeveloped areas, many had long struggled with weak profits, soured assets and lax governance. The group has also been operating in a more difficult environment since 2019, when China’s push for more loans toward small- and medium-sized enterprises triggered a price war with bigger banks.

Lack of oversight and proper governance at these lenders has been a persistent issue. Some rural cooperatives are operated essentially as a “cash machine” for big shareholders, the central bank said in its 2023 financial stability report. Some had also deviated from their policy role of servicing the rural and agricultural areas by extending big loans to other areas to achieve growth.

The latest push to merge lending cooperatives got underway in 2022, when regulators called on transforming 25 provincial-level cooperatives created in the early 2000s into modern financial enterprises to further cut risks.

Bad Loans

The government had since authorized seven provinces to consolidate their over 500 smaller lenders either through mergers or a shareholding structure, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

While the mergers created bigger financial institutions, they aren’t necessarily stronger because the transactions weren’t always done in a market-oriented approach.

One case is Liaoshen Bank Co., which China created in 2021 to absorb dozen lenders with soured balance sheets. The lender still had a bad loan ratio of 4.67% as of end-2022, according to its filing, compared with 1.85% for city commercial banks on the whole.

“The reform will have to really tackle the problems instead of sweeping them under the rug,” said Liu, who in early years of his career oversaw some rural credit cooperatives for Agricultural Bank of China Ltd. in Zhejiang. “Legacy issues could cripple the operations of newly formed institutions if they’re simply covered up, and in a worse case induce more problems and bigger hazards.”

Conflicts may also arise on internal management level, as all parties brought together, strong or weak, will now have to carve up one big cake, according to Shen Meng, a director at Beijing-based investment bank Chanson & Co.

“You don’t really get a big ship by just bundling ten dinghies,” Shen said. “The fundamental issues are still left unresolved.” — Bloomberg

Food must be served

ROBERT MATHEWS—UNSPLASH

FOOD, and any excuse to serve or share it, is part of our culture of hospitality. An unwritten rule on Filipino etiquette seems to expect meals as the center of any occasion. There seems to be an unbreakable social rule — where two or more are gathered for any reason, food must be served.

There are of course formal occasions that send out invitations, expecting food to be served like weddings, birthdays, corporate anniversaries, board meetings, and onboarding of new recruits.

Informal get-togethers also feature lighter meals. These include wakes, budget meetings, bridal showers, book launches, lectures on mental health, economic briefings, alumni chats and any event where participants need to be together for more than 15 minutes — just coffee and corned beef sandwich for me, please.

The convention of serving food at any social gathering attracts uninvited walk-ins whose primary motive is nutrition. (They don’t wear name tags.) The free meal accounts for the appearance of mothers with toddlers in tow in such unlikely corporate settings as an annual stockholders’ meetings of listed companies. (Where’s the buffet table?) Such stragglers arrive just when the reception desk is about to pack up. (Ma’am, is the baby suckling at your breast a preferred or common stockholder?) This opportune gate crash time comes after the president’s report, and just before “other matters.” (Are there any questions?) Corporate freeloaders don’t ask questions about EBITDA for the year and capex overruns. They head directly to the buffet where the lines are just forming.

Organizations, including civic clubs, are mindful of the expectations of the staff as part of an inclusive corporate culture. There are festivals that even welcome children and dependents into the hallowed corporate halls. The elevators can be full of guests and their caregivers when it is Halloween. The only passport to enter any floor with its celebrations is a costume — a cape will do even if it looks like a blanket.

Our foodie culture has its supply-side aspects.

Hosts of events that involve catering arrangements are frustrated in their inability to nail down the exact number of guests to expect with the determined refusal of invitees to follow RSVP protocol. (I’ve scheduled meditation sessions with my guru.) Even with reception desks outside venues where gifts are deposited and seating is assigned (Table #25), there are still walk-ins that just slip through — I just came from the washroom. And they have big bags.

A trip abroad to the international head office can be a cultural jolt. Food is considered merely a nutritional necessity and not part of corporate etiquette. If it is served at all, it is during a working lunch where culinary enjoyment complete with the smacking of lips is considered bad form like the opening monologue of an awards show. There may be sandwiches available in tiny self-sealed servings. Condiments like catsup and salad dressing are in sachets.

Even when a foreign host takes the visitor to lunch, it is likely to be at the office canteen where snacks (turkey breast on whole wheat) are the main feature. The occasion is likely to be on a Dutch treat basis as well. (Warm or iced water?) The visitor is informed that there is a coffee shop near his hotel that serves iced café latte. (Be sure to leave a 20% tip.)

Why is food a cultural part of our meetings? Can this meal culture be cut back, not just to improve the bottom line but contribute to a healthier workforce and shorter meetings? Constant snacking is certain to lead to obesity since social meals are often heavy in carbo and sugar — can you pass the doughnuts?

But if meals are removed from meetings, it is not the intended beneficiaries that may raise an eyebrow or two. One must only observe what happens to untouched leftovers to see where the pinch will be felt. It is no mystery then why there is too much food on the table at meetings even when there are only a few attendees. The meal option affects the serving staff and her preferred caterer, who is ready to pack the leftovers in nice boxes to take home.

Sequels to meetings only extend the food mandate. In case of a deadlock of ideas, the meeting is adjourned — let’s discuss that over lunch tomorrow.

 

TONY SAMSON is chairman and CEO of TOUCH xda
ar.samson@yahoo.com

Alec Baldwin to be arraigned this week for Rust movie-set shooting

ACTOR Alec Baldwin in a scene from Rust. — IMDB

ACTOR Alec Baldwin will be arraigned on Thursday in New Mexico after he was charged again with involuntary manslaughter in the fatal 2021 shooting of a cinematographer on the set of the film Rust, officials said on Tuesday.

A spokesperson for New Mexico’s court system said in an e-mail that Mr. Baldwin’s arraignment in the First Judicial District Court in Santa Fe would be a virtual proceeding.

Mr. Baldwin’s attorneys did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Earlier this month when the new charges were announced Mr. Baldwin’s attorneys Luke Nikas and Alex Spiro issued a statement saying: “We look forward to our day in court.”

The Oct. 21, 2021, shooting on the set of Rust killed cinematographer Halyna Hutchins. The reinstated criminal case against Mr. Baldwin comes months after previous charges were dropped.

The new charges came in an indictment by a New Mexico grand jury after an independent forensic test concluding that Baldwin would have had to have pulled the trigger of a revolver he was using in a rehearsal for it to fire the live round that struck Ms. Hutchins in the chest and killed her.

The finding was the same as a previous FBI test on the firearm.

When prosecutors announced their intention in October to bring the case to a grand jury, the defense lawyers called the situation a “terrible tragedy” that “has been turned into this misguided prosecution.”

Mr. Baldwin, the Emmy-winning performer who starred in the hit NBC television comedy 30 Rock, has denied pulling the trigger and said he was not responsible for Ms. Hutchins’ death.

The movie’s director, Joel Souza, was struck and wounded in the shoulder by the same bullet that killed Ms. Hutchins during production of the film on a set outside Santa Fe.

According to a police report, David Halls, the assistant director who handed the gun to Mr. Baldwin, told the actor the weapon was “cold,” an industry term meaning it did not contain live ammunition or even blank rounds. Mr. Halls told police he was unaware the gun was loaded.

Last year as part of a plea agreement Mr. Halls was sentenced to a six-month suspended sentence with unsupervised probation, a $500 fine, 24 hours of community service and a firearms safety class on a charge of negligent use of a deadly weapon.

The movie’s chief weapons handler, Hannah Gutierrez, who handled the gun before Mr. Halls, has also been charged with involuntary manslaughter. She faces trial this year.

Prosecutors previously dismissed charges against Mr. Baldwin based on evidence the hammer of the revolver might have been modified, allowing it to fire without the trigger being pulled. — Reuters

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