Coup at PH’s biggest bus firm sealed in stockholders’ meet

BACOLOD CITY—The largest bus company in the Philippines has a new set of directors.

In a meeting at the company’s main office in Bacolod City on Monday (Aug. 19) the stockholders of Vallacar Transit Inc. (VTI) re-elected Leo Rey Yanson as the president of the company.

Also elected were Charles Dumancas (vice president), Ginnette Yanson-Dumancas (treasurer), and Olivia Yanson (corporate secretary).

The result of the election was announced in a press conference that saw Olivia and her children, Leo Rey and Ginnette; and the latter’s husband, Charles Dumancas, breaking down in tears.

Olivia’s four other children—Roy. Ricardo Jr., Emily and Celina (Yanson four)—did not attend the special stockholders meeting and were all removed from the board.

The Yanson siblings and their mother have been locked in an intra-corporate dispute for control of their multi-billion peso firm.
The newly-elected officers also passed resolutions, asking the company’s legal team to recommend possible legal action against Celina over her P380-million debt to the company discovered by an audit report done by SGV and results of an audit of cash, property and assets at the main office and south terminal.

SGV was appointed as the corporation’s external auditors in 2019.

The four Yanson siblings—Roy, Ricardo Jr., Emily and Celina—appeared before Bacolod City Regional Trial Court Judge Eduardo Sayson to seek a temporary restraining order and injunction to stop Leo Rey from holding a special stockholders meeting.

Leo Rey’s lawyer Norman Golez, however, told the court that the issue was already moot as the meeting had already been held.

Sheila Sison, lawyer of the Yansor four, said the camp of Olivia could not have validly held any stockholders meeting on Monday (Aug. 19) for lack of quorum in the board.

Sison said majority of the stockholders, or six out of the eight stockholders, did not attend the special stockholders meeting.

The six stockholders—Roy, Emily, Celina, Rivardo Jr., Susan Yanson, and Juan Manuel Lopez—wrote to Leo Rey to say they were rejecting the call for a special stockholders’ meeting because it was illegal.

Sison said Olivia was not even a stockholder of the firm.

Jun Maxell Orlina, lawyer of Olivia, however, maintained that the Yanson matriarch remained to be a stock holder of the firm.

Olivia, during the press conference, said she and her husband had worked hard for many years to make their company what it is today.

Leo Rey and Ginnette appealed to their siblings to talk to their mother so the family dispute can be resolved among themselves without having to go court.
The Yanson Group, the parent company of VTI, is one of the largest bus conglomerates in Southeast Asia which operates more than 4,000 buses nationwide.

Established in 1968, the 52-year-old conglomerate founded by Ricardo Yanson Sr., the Yanson patriarch, now has a total of 18,000 employees who provide transport services to 700,000 passengers daily.

It has 15 bases of operations in the cities of Bacolod, Iloilo, Dumaguete, Cebu, Cagayan De Oro, Butuan, Davao, Pagadian, Dipolog, Bohol and Batangas.

A boardroom battle erupted on July 7, 2019 when the four Yanson siblings, in a purported special board meeting, unceremoniously unseated Leo Rey Yanson as the president of VTI.

Leo Rey was subsequently replaced by his eldest brother Roy Yanson.

The special stockholders meeting on August 19 “effectively re-affirmed” Leo Rey as the rightful president of VTI, Orlina said. /TSB