STI Education Holdings Inc. of businessman Eusebio Tanco asked a Manila court sheriff to foreclose the property where the Philippine Women’s University is located on Taft Ave., Manila.
The filing of the case stemmed from the failure of the Benitez family, which controls PWU, to settle its debt obligation with STI.
STI said in a disclosure to the stock exchange it filed with Office of the Clerk of Court and Ex-Officio Sheriff of the Regional Trial Court of Manila a petition for the extra-judicial foreclosure of parcels of land registered under the name of PWU.
STI said the properties were mortgaged in favor of STI as security under the facility agreement executed with PWU.
STI in December issued notices of default to Benitez-led PWU and its sister company Unlad Resources Development Corp., after the Benitez Group allegedly failed to meet its obligations.
The notices said PWU should pay P702 million and Unlad P223 million, covering interest, penalties, lawyers’ fees and value added taxes within seven days.
The Benitez group failed to pay the loans, which resulted in STI getting control of PWU. The Benitez group opposed the takeover.
The Benitez family in January filed a case before the Manila RTC challenging STI declaration the Benitiz Group was in default. The Benitez family said it was willing to pay Tanco his original P448-million investment and not the P925 million the Tanco group was demanding.
STI bailed out PWU in 2011 by buying the debt paper from BDO Unibank and provided additional funds to pay for salaries and wages, utilities, repair leaks, retirement pay, upgrade of laboratory facilities and learning and other operational expenses.
STI also provided the professional and technical support to establish the financial, accounting and human resources system PWU needed.
Under the agreement, the Benitez group was supposed to pay STI with shares of stock through an increase in the authorized capital of PWU’s sister firm, Unlad Resources, five days from the bailout.
STI said when the PWU board was finally about to take up the capital increase in December, the Benitez group called for an adjournment, effectively blocking again the long-delayed payment to STI.
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