Alenaire

Cool head: A fried deal with Daikin fails to thaw Alenaire chief’s outlook


THE coolest business this side of the Pacific is now heating up.

“We expect to complete our line of products this year,” Alenaire Airconditioning Phils. Inc. (AAPI) chief executive Alfredo Lagman Jr. said.

Jun, as he’s called, has recently led his company out of the cold, so to speak, after a dispute with former Japanese partner Daikin Industries Ltd. was settled out of court early last year.

According to Jun, reviving the glory days of Alenaire was a promise he made to his father, the senior Lagman, who entered into a joint venture with Daikin in 1998.

The joint venture was supposed to be the platform to export its locally made air-conditioning units to the global market, Jun said. “But we saw it wasn’t working out as we hoped, so we filed for a divorce of sorts.”

The “divorce” papers were signed only last year after nearly five years of litigation—roughly as long as the life of their “marriage” with the Japanese under the Daikin-Alen Air Conditioning Inc. (DAACI).

Full Story Online: http://www.businessmirror.com.ph/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=23440:cool-head-a-fried-deal-with-daikin-fails-to-thaw-alenaire-chiefs-outlook&catid=49:personal-fortune&Itemid=74
Originally published in Personal Fortune March 2010 issue