NAGA CITY -– While no one from its school officials would confirm, a national paper last week reported that Manila-based Bacnotan Consolidated Industries Inc. had approved the acquisition of up to 80 percent of University of Nueva Caceres (UNC) in the amount of P458.4 million.

        Bacnotan Consolidated is a flagship company of the Phinma Group of Companies which is majority-owned by the Del Rosario family. The family pioneered appliance marketing in the Philippines though its DRB, or Del Rosario Brothers Co.

        The buying group’s principal activity is producing, distributing, marketing and selling clinker, cement and galvanized pre-painted roofing materials.

        It also operates educational institutions offering pre-school, elementary, secondary and tertiary formal education, and post-graduate courses, as well as, post secondary certificate courses. Other business concerns are related to the paper and packaging industry, property development and reinforced steel bars manufacturing.

        The same newspaper report said that UNC is Bacnotan’s third acquisition in the education sector over the past four years.

        Bacnotan also owns 79 percent of Araullo University in Cabanatuan City, in Nueva Ecija, which it acquired in 2004.

        “Naga is a high-growth city that enjoys local good governance and [UNC] is the largest school in Naga,” Bacnotan senior vice president Roberto Laviña was quoted as saying.

        Celebrating its 60th diamond jubilee this month, the university, the first private university in Luzon outside Metro Manila, was founded by economist, educator and lawyer Jaime Hernandez in 1948 as a small college with a student population of 958. It acquired the status of a university in 1954.