Corporate survivor keeps focus on future

IT IS, IN A WAY, the return of a prodigal son, except that this son is coming back triumphant - slightly humbled, yes, but definitely triumphant.

When Manuel 'Manny' Pangilinan left Hong Kong for Manila on a semi-permanent basis in November 1998, he was on a mission of a corporate miracle-worker. He did perform some miracles but the stint in the thorny thickets of Philippine business has certainly taken its toll.

'Our philosophy is, you cannot be the CEO if you are not physically present in a company, or at least spend most of the time in the company running it on a day-to-day basis and providing strategic direction. That's basically the reason why I moved to Manila,' Mr Pangilinan says, referring to his then additional posting as chief executive officer of the Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co (PLDT), the country's biggest telecommunications company.

Armed with proceeds from the sale of some of his company's choice assets such as Dutch car and appliance trader Hagemeyer and Hong Kong's Pacific Link mobile-phone company, Mr Pangilinan was tasked with turning around his firm's fortunes and, to a large extent, buttressing his employer's shaky empire, the Salim Group of Indonesia.

The group was tottering under US$10 billion in debt and cast adrift with the fall of its political patron, former Indonesian president Suharto.

To Mr Pangilinan, who was segueing from the post of managing director to president of First Pacific at the time, his Manila sojourn was about buying opportunities - not a strategic retreat from Hong Kong.

'Which incumbent telco in Asia could be bought? We looked at Thailand, Telkom Malaysia and Indonesia - all the incumbents were owned by the government. Would they have sold to us? I don't think so. PLDT was one of the few rare companies that was in private hands.'