HIS leveraged drive to build the country’s largest Filipino-owned hotel chain has found William Gatchalian in the firm financial embrace of taipan George Ty and Puregold’s Lucio Co.

And it looks like it is Ty and Co who are leading Gatchalian in this financial tango.

Gatchalian will report next month to his shareholders that his two Waterfront hotels in Cebu have had to borrow nearly P827 million last year from Co’s Cosco Prime Holdings for a hairraising 16 percent interest a year—equivalent to P11-million interest payment a month.

Here’s the kicker: The loan is payable in a year.Gatchalian, who controls four other hotels including the Davao Insular and Fort Ilocandia, had to run to the goateed Co to stave off a foreclosure threat from the Philippine National Bank on his two Cebu hotels.

With PNB off his back, Gatchalian then knocked on taipan George Ty’s Philippine Business Bank for another P300-million facility so as to raise P400 million last February and this time to stop Co from foreclosing and becoming 60-percent owner of the two Cebu hotels.

Having paid off half of Co’s loan, Gatchalian managed to buy time and stretch repayment on the balance of P426.5 million for another two years.

In return, Gatchalian executed a second mortgage on the Mactan hotel, which adjoins the international airport, in favor of Ty’s bank. The taipan, incidentally, owns the Marco Polo Cebu.