PDIC eyes premium from sale of UCPB

WITH government-sequestered United Coconut Planters Bank (UCPB) returning to profitability in the first half of 2009, the Philippine Deposit Insurance Corp. (PDIC) will try to sell its equity interest in the bank at a premium should the Supreme Court rule with finality on the bank ownership in favor of the government.

“Ideally we should be looking at cost recovery. But with the bank now making profits, of course we can get some premium,” PDIC president Jose Nograles told reporters.

In 2003 PDIC extended a P20-billion financial assistance to help rehabilitate UCPB, which suffered from heavy deposit withdrawals when the Supreme Court ruled that the coconut-levy funds used to put up the bank were public money.

Eight billion pesos of the loan from PDIC had been settled already while the balance of P12 billion had been converted into equity in the bank.

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