AFTER nearly five years of courtship, the Lopezes finally capitulated to the Del Rosarios and sold their University of Iloilo lock-stock-and-barrel to the Phinma Group?s publicly listed Bacnotan Consolidated.

And, like their just-concluded acquisition of the University of Pangasinan, the Phinma Group has also partnered with brothers Johnny and Cesar Hernandez, the owners of Victory Liner and Five Star bus companies, to complete the purchase of Bacnotan?s fifth school.

Bacnotan president Ramon del Rosario Jr. said the Phinma/Bacnotan Group was acquiring 70 percent of the Iloilo university, with the Hernandezes picking up the balance of 30 percent.

Founded in 1947 as Iloilo City Colleges by then Mayor Fernando Lopez, the university had been on the block as early as 2004, with former Rep. Alberto Lopez, who took over the chairmanship and presidency after his father passed away in 1993, also expressing his wish to retire.

Apparently, none of the five other siblings of the late Don Fernando and their children had the desire to continue managing the educational institution.

According to a disclosure to the Philippine Stock Exchange, Bacnotan was paying Inaec Agro-Industrial Corp. P315 million to acquire the Iloilo school, in addition to assuming the taxes attendant to the sale.

That price was in the same vicinity as had been reported in a September 2004 Cocktales column.

Del Rosario also said former AIM professor Meliton Salazar Jr. has just been elected University of Iloilo president.

Money-go-round

? GlaxoSmithKline is slashing by 30 to 50 percent the price of its medicines here in reaction to the growing generics presence in the local pharmaceutical industry.

To take effect March 1, the price cut covers drugs against asthma, infection, hypertension, malignancy, diabetes, ulcer and hypertension.

? Whoops, an eagle-eyed reader, apparently based in California, alerted Cocktales about the mistake in the date and place of the first opening of the Goldilocks store in the West Coast, which was actually in 1976, in Los Angeles, not Las Vegas, as was reported on Wednesday.

Heard through the grapevine

The plan of the SM Group to build a residential condominium near Sta. Maria della Strada church beside La Vista subdivision-- whose VIP residents include the Arroyos and Senator Miriam Santiago -- is being opposed by a coalition of La Vista residents.

(Web site: www.cocktales.ph; E-mail: cocktales_mst@pldtdsl.net)