New chairman for Philweb

The beleaguered Philippines e-gaming group Philweb, still reeling from the war on e-gaming being waged by president Rodrigo Duterte, has announced the appointment of major shareholder Gregorio Araneta as chairman.

Our readers will recall that previous chairman and majority shareholder Roberto Ongpin stepped down last month as the presidential hammering adversely impacted the company.

According to the company’s stock exchange notification Araneta is already an independent director of the company and sits on its nomination and remuneration committees.

The businessman directly owns 100 shares in PhilWeb and maintains another 13,043,478 shares through Gregorio Araneta Inc., along with business interests in property development and the energy sector. He is married to Irene R. Marcos-Araneta, daughter of the country’s late deposed dictator Ferdinand E. Marcos.

The government’s licensing authority, Pagcor, recently announced that it would start accepting applications from operators for new licenses provided they did not target Filipino punters. It is not known at present whether Philweb has submitted an application in a bid to replace the almost 300 licenses for its venues which Pagcor refused to renew in August.

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