ALLAN THE MAN

As the live music scene heats up further and more foreign performers regularly include Manila in their tour dates, the need for competitive concert venues has risen.

At present there are only two major venues—the Smart Araneta Coliseum in Quezon City and the SM Mall of Asia (MOA) Arena in Pasay—that can accommodate crowds of 10,000 or more.

A third one—the 50,000-capacity Philippine Arena in Bulacan—is being built by the Iglesia ni Cristo for its congregation but will likewise be available for entertainment and sports events. It is set to open in 2014.

The presence of MOA Arena and soon-to-open Philippine Arena has posed a serious challenge to Smart Araneta. The latter, also known as the Big Dome, is in the midst of a makeover that it calls “extreme transformation.”

“We are talking to our bankers,” PLDT Chairman Manuel V. Pangilinan told reporters in a chance interview.

“We are preparing [funding] in the event that the deal materializes,” Mr. Pangilinan added, referring to ongoing talks to buy into broadcaster GMA Network.

The bulk of the funding, however, will come from PLDT’s cash flow, Mr. Pangilinan said.

Already, PLDT has raised some P4 billion after divesting its 27% stake or 397 million shares in PhilWeb Corp. at P10.70 apiece.

They may dispute each other's rankings, but when it comes to executive compensation, ABS-CBN is definitely way, way ahead of competing GMA Network.

ABS-CBN reported Thursday that it paid chief executive and child of owner Eugenio "Gabby" Lopez III and its four highest officers nearly P233.4 million last year, which works out to an average of P46.6 million each.

Lopez's charmed circle includes President Ma. Rosario Santos-Concio, Roldeo Theodore Endrinal, Rolando Valdueza and Ma. Socorro Vidanes.

 In contrast, GMA chairman and chief executive Felipe Gozon paid himself and his co-owner, president Gilberto Duavit Jr. as well as Felipe Yalong, Marissa Flores and Wilma Galvante a little over P134 million, or about P23.36 million each.

The combined compensation still includes the last paycheck of broadcaster Miguel Enriquez, who retired from GMA in September 2011 as senior vice president for radio operations.

Forbes Magazine has just released its 2012 list of the 40 Richest People in the Philippines. SM tycoon Henry Sy retained his spot as the country's richest person with an impressive net worth of $9.1 billion

.But the country’s biggest gainer was Enrique Razon Jr., who became a billionaire just last year with $1.6 billion and is now the country’s third-richest person, worth $3.6 billion. He made his first fortune in ports, taking over the family business, International Container Terminal Services, at 27. He turned ICTS into one of the largest port operators in Asia, then expanded into Europe, North America and the Middle East.

There are three newcomers: Lucio and Susan Co, a husband-and-wife team who join the ranks of billionaires thanks to last September’s IPO of their hypermarket chain Puregold Price Club. Another debutant is 38-year-old civil engineer Michael Cosiquien, who took his building company Megawide Construction public last year and saw its stock triple.

We got this really surprising tip from a source that rumor is going around that billionaire tycoon Henry Sy is looking to buy controlling shares of Globe Telecom.

Henry Sy has interestes in a lot of markets — retail, real estate, banking, leisure, etc. This rumored interest in the telecoms industry could have been sparked by the recent acquisition of Digitel by PLDT, putting the competition between Smart and Globe in a spotlight.

Earlier, Globe has secured a $90 million loan from China Banking Corp. to spend for the expansion of its 4G network in the Philippines. China Bank is also owned by Henry Sy.

Globe has a market capitalization of around Php142 billion and recently achieved a 1st quarter revenue of Php20.2 billion (Q1, 2012). The company is partly owned by the Ayalas with 32% share while Singaporean telecom, Singtel, owns 47%.

Henry Sy is the Philippine’s richest guy (#173 in the world) with an estimated worth of $8 billion or Php344 billion. That’s more than enough money to buy controlling shares of Globe.

PhilStar.com

This has to be a blind item as of now. Before the year ends, probably end of November, a giant merger will be announced in a grand (as in “fabulous!”) style. 

Here's what Mark Zuckerberg said on his blog post:

"I'm excited to share the news that we've agreed to acquire Instagram and that their talented team will be joining Facebook.

For years, we've focused on building the best experience for sharing photos with your friends and family. Now, we'll be able to work even more closely with the Instagram team to also offer the best experiences for sharing beautiful mobile photos with people based on your interests.

We believe these are different experiences that complement each other. But in order to do this well, we need to be mindful about keeping and building on Instagram's strengths and features rather than just trying to integrate everything into Facebook.

That's why we're committed to building and growing Instagram independently. Millions of people around the world love the Instagram app and the brand associated with it, and our goal is to help spread this app and brand to even more people.

We think the fact that Instagram is connected to other services beyond Facebook is an important part of the experience. We plan on keepingfeatures like the ability to post to other social networks, the ability to not share your Instagrams on Facebook if you want, and the ability to have followers and follow people separately from your friends on Facebook.

The news sparked from  Ruffa Gutierrez' tweet regarding what's MVP will be buying next. Though Ruffa doesnt mention (in her tweet) any name or any company.