Self-proclaimed fintechpreneur Marvin Dela Cruz, owner of e-wallet flop SquidPay, is pushing back against a smear campaign by his estranged business partner, Premiere Horizon Alliance (PHA) treasurer and director Brandon Benito P. Leong.
In a statement, Dela Cruz accused Leong and PHA’s management (led by president and CEO Roberto B. Ortiz) of coming out with “several malicious disclosures and unsubstantiated news”, specifically the “P100 million false claim” against him and SquidPay.
“The objective of the complainant is to obtain more than they are seeking in the case because of the fact that they tried to explicitly target me and my voting rights. Why? It’s not too hard to guess. They are trying to prevent me from taking control of the company. The very same company I helped and invested with,” said Dela Cruz who did not mention Leong’s name in his statement.
Last October, Leong obtained a court order freezing the assets of Dela Cruz and SquidPay to collect on the P100 million convertible loan he gave to Dela Cruz as seed money to jumpstart SquidPay in the middle of the pandemic in 2020.
Dela Cruz claimed that it was Leong who did not “execute” the settlement agreement on the P100 million loan they reached in April this year.
SquidPay no pay! PHA treasurer Brandon Leong sues Marvin Dela Cruz for unpaid P100M loan
“It is unusual that they claimed that we failed to execute several conditions in the convertible contract but they failed to mention in their complaint that their company was subjected to government compliance concerns and that they had transactions which were flagged and marked irregular,” said Dela Cruz.
Dela Cruz said this was the reason why he did not agree to convert the loan into PHA shares.
“I have over 100M receivables with PHA ..I could have quickly settled this false claim to get it done, but we chose to follow and comply with the government’s directives,” said Dela Cruz who promised to file a counter claim suit and cyber libel against Leong and PHA management.
Dela Cruz revealed that he chose to inject P120 million to PHA in May 2021 even though his baby, SquidPay, was also starving for cash at that time.
Dela Cruz, who is PHA’s single biggest shareholder with 24 percent, is asking the support of minority PHA shareholders (public float is 47 percent) to support his bid to take control of the holding firm during its annual meeting scheduled next month. (Leong and his mom, Marian Pena, and sister, Christina Pena Leong have a total of 2.5 percent interest in PHA.)
“We will give everything we have to clear our obligation and our names…We are on a mission to take PHA back and make it right. To make SquidPay as everyone’s wallet, put a stop to its uncertainties, bring back control to its legitimate shareholders, and make it profitable and viable,” said Dela Cruz.
He claimed that he was supposed to lead and manage PHA as early as December last year, but he gave way to the current management. He was “saddened” that PHA has doubled its losses in the first nine months this year under the new management.
Dela Cruz himself admitted SquidPay, which started started as an Operator of Payments System (OPS) for bus commuters, was pushed nearly to its “demise” less than a year after it obtained an Electronic Money Issuer (EMI) license in December 2020.
“When the loan was given to us, SquidPay undertook a massive transformation. This includes appointing a board member to the convertible note issuer along with their new set of officers and consultants such as a president, an OIC for finance, an app development firm, and a corporate planner… which effectively hampered our existing phase of expansion and impacted our main operation,” said Dela Cruz.
“Because of these formative changes, it is as if SquidPay was mostly non-operational for the whole year of 2021…we cannot sit back and allow the demise of SquidPay to continue,” he added.
Dela Cruz said his relationship with Leong soured when the SquidPay board voted for a total revamp and restructuring of the company in November 2021.
“After we obtained full control of the company, we learned several terrible things, which I cannot divulge in this statement and will be brought to light at the proper time,” he said.
“Never in my mind did I imagine that I will be subjected to this kind of harassment today, especially by the very people I trusted to manage the company but now working against me,” he added.
