Merger and reunion

While silence and tranquility pervade the financial market this Lenten week, there’s a chit-chat, which cannot be suppressed going around the banking circles that the Palace is soon to name the new honcho of the Land Bank of the Philippines. The current Land Bank President Cecilia “Cecil” Borromeo is reportedly bowing out of government service within the month to give way to another lady banker, Lynette Ortiz, the chief executive officer (CEO) of Standard Chartered Bank Philippines. And while the market is sleeping calmly, the huss emanating both from the walls of the finance department and the halls of Land Bank, a few streets away from each other along the busy Roxas Blvd., is that Ms. Lynette is set to visit or has already visited the office of Ms. Cecil. The visit was, actually, a briefing on the duties and responsibilities of a Land Bank CEO. This will be Ms. Lynette’s first venture as a civil servant. She's always been a private banker- Citibank in New York and HSBC Philippines. From there, she moved on to head Institutional Corporate and Financial Institutions (ICFI). She left her luxurious ICFI managing director post to steer the capital markets of Standard Chartered in Singapore. In June 2016, she returned to Manila from her regional posting as Head of Capital Markets of Standard Chartered Bank for ASEAN based in Singapore to become the first Filipino CEO of Standard Chartered and Head of Global Banking for Philippines, which she has held for six years and a little over six months before the offer of the Land Bank post. A muted source quoted Ms. Lynette as saying that “one cannot say no” to such an opportunity and as Rotarians would almost, always say: “Happy to serve.” Then do I take it to mean that Ms. Lynette will be the steward of the consolidated Development Bank of the Philippines and Land Bank? Heard the government is bent on in merging these two state-owned financial institutions and their union will be sooner than expected. Though my bias is for Ms. Cecil, least I may be misconstrued, it is just that the concurrent Land Bank president has steered both DBP and Land Bank. She was Land Bank officer-in-charge, taking over from Ms. Gilda Pico, before she was named DBP president in 2017. And two years after, in 2019, she went back to head the Land Bank. I’ve known both Ms. Cecil and Ms. Lynette. When I was covering the banking and finance beats, the late Land Bank executive vice president Alfonso “Boy” Cruz introduced me to her as the head of its international operations with focus on the remittances of overseas Filipino workers. Ms. Lynette, on the other hand, was with the treasury team of HSBC Philippines under Jose Arnulfo “Wick” Veloso, the current president and general manager of Government Service Insurance System (GSIS). Mr. Wick from what I’ve heard in the market is among the candidates to replace Finance Secretary Benjamin E. Diokno, should the latter be reappointed Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas governor. As the wheels of banking churn and DBP-LandBank marriage takes place, all things considered, there’s a possibility that Mr. Wick and Ms. Lynette will be working together again. Watching how things would unravel. Talkback to me at [sionil731@gmail.com](mailto:sionil731@gmail.com)