There was apparently good reason why the señoras at the Inquirer again conducted their by now trademark bigay-bawi operation -- handing out copies of the year-end financial report to the minority shareholders but retrieving them back at the end of the annual meeting.
According to a copy of an audited annual report finally secured by a minority shareholder, the Philippine Daily Inquirer posted a P215-million loss for 2017, an astounding reversal of fortune for the broadsheet tabloid since the year before it was still able to squeak in a modest P15-million profit.
In contrast, the Philippine Star, the newspaper alone and excluding the related businesses, cleared 2017 with P95-million profit, still good but a far cry from its record P400-million profit four years ago.
The Star's Port Area neighbor, the Manila Bulletin has also maintained its head above water despite the wholesale digital switch of news reading habits, reporting P49.8-million net income for 2017.
This, however, is not an apples-to-apples comparison.
The Bulletin newspaper also owns the printing presses, the one-hectare property and building in Intramuros, as well as seven provincial branches.
The Inquirer, on the other hand, is just, well, the print dinosaur by itself.
This is so because the Inquirer señoras somehow had managed to exclude the minority shareholder-journalists -- while preaching financial inclusion to the Ayala Avenue-Diliman-Yellow echo chamber -- from the ownership of the building and the two blocks of the Chino Roces property and the printing assets in Laguna, Cebu and Davao.
Even the "Inquirer" website operations is a misnomer, the internet operations being another exclusive señora domain, along with Radyo Inquirer, with the Inquirer newspaper reduced to being merely a supplier of news to the broadcast and web operations.
Unlike the Bulletin with its P3.475 billion in paid-up capital and nearly P200 million in retained earnings, with total current assets of P3.2 billion against total liabilities of about P1.6 billion as of end-2017, the Inquirer by comparison is skating on thin ice with its P500 million paid-up capitalization.
One does not need a PhD in rocket science to project where the road is heading if Inquirer suffers another financial loss of similar magnitude this year and next.
(The now Vancouver-based former Inquirer president, Danilo Venida, and fellow minority shareholder Victor C. Agustin have a 'simple' solution: The Inquirer broadsheet should just shut down and distribute whatever remaining capital to its shareholders while there is still left.
The señoras can simultaneously transfer the Inquirer liabilities to the website operations and merge them with other related companies like the real estate company to strengthen the enlarged corporate balance sheet. After all, they all belong to one caboodle, the exercise amounting to transferring from one pocket to the other pocket.
The question is, would the señoras put their money where their libertarian heart is?)
And that was probably why the señoras were forced to admit to their worried editors, after acknowledging that the announced deal with white knight Ramon S. Ang had essentially collapsed, that they wanted a resolution to the ownership sale by this year-end.
According to the industry chatter, the señoras have already returned the P1 billion that the San Miguel president had supposedly advanced as down payment and as proof of RSA's good intentions.
If that account is correct, this raises the question, how did the señoras book the exit of the PLDT group from Inquirer, given that RSA himself has admitted to providing the exit package for the PLDT group?
The answer, if we may venture a guess, may lie at the bottom front page of the Inquirer newspaper.
Meanwhile, to rally their troops, the señoras have even projected a better 2018 for their newspaper. We wish them luck, for the sake of our journalist colleagues whose profit-sharing scheme, courtesy of Inquirer founding partners Eugenia Apostol, Betty Go-Belmonte, and Florangel Rosario-Braid, is now just a memory.
But from our listening post, it looks like columnist-eventologist Tim Yap just as in the past will have another chance to crack his cutting thanksgiving remark at the next Star Christmas party: "Thank God we are enjoying steak at a five-star hotel while the other is feeding its employees with packed-lunch by the company driveway."
We cannot disagree while tut-tutting, Ang lupit mo, Tita Timmy!
According to a copy of an audited annual report finally secured by a minority shareholder, the Philippine Daily Inquirer posted a P215-million loss for 2017, an astounding reversal of fortune for the broadsheet tabloid since the year before it was still able to squeak in a modest P15-million profit.
In contrast, the Philippine Star, the newspaper alone and excluding the related businesses, cleared 2017 with P95-million profit, still good but a far cry from its record P400-million profit four years ago.
The Star's Port Area neighbor, the Manila Bulletin has also maintained its head above water despite the wholesale digital switch of news reading habits, reporting P49.8-million net income for 2017.
This, however, is not an apples-to-apples comparison.
The Bulletin newspaper also owns the printing presses, the one-hectare property and building in Intramuros, as well as seven provincial branches.
The Inquirer, on the other hand, is just, well, the print dinosaur by itself.
This is so because the Inquirer señoras somehow had managed to exclude the minority shareholder-journalists -- while preaching financial inclusion to the Ayala Avenue-Diliman-Yellow echo chamber -- from the ownership of the building and the two blocks of the Chino Roces property and the printing assets in Laguna, Cebu and Davao.
Even the "Inquirer" website operations is a misnomer, the internet operations being another exclusive señora domain, along with Radyo Inquirer, with the Inquirer newspaper reduced to being merely a supplier of news to the broadcast and web operations.
Unlike the Bulletin with its P3.475 billion in paid-up capital and nearly P200 million in retained earnings, with total current assets of P3.2 billion against total liabilities of about P1.6 billion as of end-2017, the Inquirer by comparison is skating on thin ice with its P500 million paid-up capitalization.
One does not need a PhD in rocket science to project where the road is heading if Inquirer suffers another financial loss of similar magnitude this year and next.
(The now Vancouver-based former Inquirer president, Danilo Venida, and fellow minority shareholder Victor C. Agustin have a 'simple' solution: The Inquirer broadsheet should just shut down and distribute whatever remaining capital to its shareholders while there is still left.
The señoras can simultaneously transfer the Inquirer liabilities to the website operations and merge them with other related companies like the real estate company to strengthen the enlarged corporate balance sheet. After all, they all belong to one caboodle, the exercise amounting to transferring from one pocket to the other pocket.
The question is, would the señoras put their money where their libertarian heart is?)
And that was probably why the señoras were forced to admit to their worried editors, after acknowledging that the announced deal with white knight Ramon S. Ang had essentially collapsed, that they wanted a resolution to the ownership sale by this year-end.
According to the industry chatter, the señoras have already returned the P1 billion that the San Miguel president had supposedly advanced as down payment and as proof of RSA's good intentions.
If that account is correct, this raises the question, how did the señoras book the exit of the PLDT group from Inquirer, given that RSA himself has admitted to providing the exit package for the PLDT group?
The answer, if we may venture a guess, may lie at the bottom front page of the Inquirer newspaper.
Meanwhile, to rally their troops, the señoras have even projected a better 2018 for their newspaper. We wish them luck, for the sake of our journalist colleagues whose profit-sharing scheme, courtesy of Inquirer founding partners Eugenia Apostol, Betty Go-Belmonte, and Florangel Rosario-Braid, is now just a memory.
But from our listening post, it looks like columnist-eventologist Tim Yap just as in the past will have another chance to crack his cutting thanksgiving remark at the next Star Christmas party: "Thank God we are enjoying steak at a five-star hotel while the other is feeding its employees with packed-lunch by the company driveway."
We cannot disagree while tut-tutting, Ang lupit mo, Tita Timmy!
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