A young entrepreneur, riding on the renewable energy boom, continues to play around with corporate ethics and rules to apparently enrich himself.
The entrepreneur, whose direct relative occupies an influential post in the government, appears to be having his way in the stock market through a scheme that is likened to “budol-budol,” or deception.
Budol-budol is a low-life criminal scheme perpetrated mainly by street thugs preying on gullible victims. It is a coined Hiligaynon word that refers to the swindling hurly-burly of a gang that convinces the target that inside the bulging bag there are bundles of peso bills (bank notes). It has become a local term but the crime is perpetrated world wide. The perpetrator or offender is simply a swindler who gets the money or anything from someone by fraud or trickery.
The ruse is as old as civilization. But for the entrepreneur to pull off the scam in the country’s bourse is something else. It speaks volumes about two things—the young entrepreneur’s brazenness and the shield of untouchability that he could be basking, courtesy of his influential relative.
His latest caper was to sell his shares, currently priced below P1.50 in the market, for only P0.10. It is a huge windfall as one can imagine. It turns out he was buying the bargain shares to shore up control in his renewable company that had received billions in cash from, well, gullible investors.
The young entrepreneur, without cash to build his RE empire, succeeded in hoodwinking investors with deep pockets to buy into his company. But at the same time, this young entrepreneur wanted control despite not having the financial means to keep his RE company in his reins.
It smacks of insider trading or stock manipulation, but the prospect of being criminally charged did not deter the favored son from transferring 24 billion shares of the RE company by selling them cheap to himself.
In the end, the young entrepreneur earned at least P33 billion in profits. Not bad for someone who didn’t have his own money to build a company in the first place.
Another tycoon and his utility company reportedly have expressed keen interest in further pouring money into the young entrepreneur’s RE company with the objective of gaining control. The new victim may fall into this “budol-budol” scheme.
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