Tuesday, November 08, 2011

MPIC acquires controlling stake in Asian Hospital from Thai group

By: Doris C. Dumlao
Philippine Daily Inquirer
Asian Hospital

MANILA, Philippines –Infrastructure  holding firm Metro Pacific Investments Corp. has inked a deal to acquire the controlling stake of Thai hospital group Bumungrad in the upscale 219-bed Asian Hospital in Filinvest Corporate City, Alabang.

Based on a disclosure to the Philippine Stock Exchange, MPIC will pay around P1.46 billion to buy at least 57 percent of Asian Hospital’s equity following an agreement with Bumungrad and a subsequent tender offer for all the remaining shares held by the public.

This will be the sixth hospital in the growing network of premium hospitals controlled by the local unit of Manuel V. Pangilinan-led First Pacific group nationwide.

With this acquisition, the MPIC Hospital Group will have an excess of 1,800 beds throughout the Philippine archipelago.

MPIC Hospital Group president Augie Palisoc Jr. said the group was excited with its investment in Asian Hospital, one of the premier medical facilities in the country that is about to complete its 14-storey second tower which costs about P1.2 billion to build.

“Tower 2 will house an additional 144 beds, outpatient facilities, doctors’ clinics, food outlets and even more parking spaces for our customers. This gives us a platform to better serve the health needs of our countrymen in the south of Metro Manila and in Southern Luzon,” Palisoc said.

The expansion will thereby increase the capacity of Asian Hospital to 363 beds.

Under the deal, MPIC will take over control of at least 57 percent of the hospital’s shares by buying the following the following:

* 100 percent of the shares of Bumrungrad International Philippines Inc., which owns about 532.58 million shares of the hospital for P732 million;

* 100 percent of the shares of Neptune Stroika Holdings (40 percent of which is currently owned by Bumungrad) which owns about 473.15 million shares for about P601 million; and,

* 88.54 million shares for about P123 million.

The disclosure added that in accordance with the rules on mandatory tender offers, MPIC will announce later “at the appropriate time” its intention to conduct a mandatory tender offer for all the remaining Asian Hospital shares held by the public.

The details of said mandatory tender offer will be announced at the appropriate time.

The final shareholding of MPIC in Asian Hospital will depend on the results of the tender offer as the 57-percent control includes only the earlier mentioned blocks of shares.

Subject to satisfaction of certain conditions precedent to closing, these transactions are expected to be completed before the end of 2011, the disclosure said.

Asian Hospital will be the fourth hospital controlled by MPIC in Metro Manila after Makati Medical Center, Cardinal Santos Medical Center in San Juan, and the Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Sta. Mesa. Manila.

MPIC has also invested in Riverside Medical Center in Bacolod and Davao Doctors Hospital in Mindanao.

 http://bit.ly/vpvhkh

Sunday, November 06, 2011

Before there was social enterprise, there was Mountain Maid

By: Maurice Malanes
Inquirer Northern Luzon

A WORKING student displays chunks of freshly
washed ube that are stored at the Sisters of the
Good Shepherd convent in Mines View, Baguio City. Many
products from food to clothing are produced and sold
here.

BAGUIO CITY – After finishing high school in 2008, Jackie Rose Lubbong, daughter of poor farmer parents from a remote village in Aguinaldo, Ifugao, would have chosen to go to urban areas such as Baguio and would have ended up as a waitress or contractual worker.

Or with no other option, she would have married early and would have been preoccupied with motherhood at an early age.

But she had big dreams; she wanted to pursue college.

She was determined and optimistic that there was a way to pursue her dream. And thanks to her parish priest, who recommended her to work her way to college through the Mountain Maid Training and Development Foundation.

“God willing, I seek to finish my college two years from now,” says Lubbong. Taking up Bachelor of Science in Business Administration and majoring in marketing, the 19-year-old Ifugao lass will be delayed by a year to finish her four-year course.

The reason: She spends three days in school and three days each week at the foundation.
Managed by the Sisters of the Good Shepherd, the foundation has been helping send poor Cordillera children, mostly young girls, since 1952 through its now famous products such as strawberry and ube jams.

Other products include peanut brittle, orange marmalade, cookies, lengua de gato (a special kind of cookies) and bread.

Lubbong is now one of the storekeepers at the foundation’s store where hundreds of customers queue up, especially during holidays such as Christmas, the Baguio flower festival and Holy Week.

AN EMPLOYEE of the Sisters of the Good Shepherd
Convent weaves cloth for the facility that has become
known for its ube jam.
Also working his way to college is Christopher Rivera, the last child of a mechanic and a teacher. After finishing high school in 2007, he was told by his parents to stop schooling first because of financial difficulties.

But the young lad from Tuba, Benguet, insisted that there must be a way to pursue college even if it meant working part-time while studying. Through his local parish, he came to learn about the foundation run by the Good Shepherd sisters.

Now 20, Rivera has finished his Bachelor of Science in Financial Management and is taking up his second course, accounting technology.

While completing his second course, Rivera is also assigned at the foundation’s store, helping inventory items sold if he is not helping attend to customers.

Being assigned at the store is “some sort of promotion” for Rivera. “When I was just out of high school (he was just 16 then), I was initiated into the challenging task of manually grinding peanuts using a rolling pin,” he says.

Peanuts have to be ground before they are mixed with other ingredients such as sugar and rolled again with a rolling pin to produce one of the foundation’s famous major products – peanut brittle.

Lubbong and Rivera are among over 200 youths, mostly from the Cordillera, who are seeking to become professionals after “graduating” from making strawberry or ube jams or peanut brittle at the foundation.

The foundation’s ultimate idea is to empower young people through education, which will give them better opportunities and choices, says Sister Guadalupe Bautista, the foundation’s coordinator.

SISTER Guadalupe Bautista shows off their newly
made home-style cookies at the bake shop of Good
Shepherd in Mines View, Baguio City.
The foundation has 205 students from first to senior years. They are enrolled in degree courses such as social work, education, information technology, accountancy, business administration, financial management, electrical and civil engineering, psychology, hotel and restaurant management and agri-business.

A few others opted to take up short courses such as auto servicing, nursing aid training, electronics, secretarial and care-giving.
The Good Shepherd sisters’ vision and mission to educate poor but deserving young people by giving them ways and means to work their way to college has a long history.

The sisters’ program evolved from the dream of late Bishop William Brasseur, then apostolic vicar of Mt. Province. As a young CICM missionary assigned to the Cordillera in 1931, Brasseur had seen early on the need for education of poor but gifted young people of the highlands.

He thus requested the Sisters of the Good Shepherd to set up a foundation here.
Mother Mary Ursula Jung, the Religious of the Good Sisters (RGS) superior general at that time, gladly acceded to Brasseur’s request.

On Nov. 11, 1952, the RGS Los Angeles province in the United States assigned four sisters to Baguio. Having discovered that strawberries could grow well in Baguio and Benguet, they taught young Igorot girls how to make strawberry jams.

The first jam they cooked in a small pot launched a cottage industry, which would soon support the education of thousands of young Cordillerans.

The Brasseur-inspired initiative of the nuns of educating and thus empowering young people through a homegrown industry is now considered one of the models of what is called “social enterprise.”

A social enterprise, says one definition, is an organization that applies business strategies to achieving philanthropic goals. The terms social entrepreneur and social entrepreneurship were used first in the literature on social change in the 60s and 70s.

The almost seven-decade initiative of the Good Shepherd nuns is now well-recognized by advocates of social enterprise.

Last October 20 and 21, civil society and business sectors sat down to listen to Sister Guadalupe Bautista share the success story of the Mountain Maid and Training Development Foundation at a conference in Makati City organized by the private Peace and Equity Foundation (PEF).

The PEF is spearheading “Social Enterprise: The Next Business Model” as part of new program focus.

Recently, the Social Security System recognized and awarded Mountain Maid the “2011 SSS Balikat ng Bayan Award” as “Top Employer for North Luzon-Medium Category.”

In 2009, the Department of Labor and Employment awarded Mountain Maid a “Business Excellence and People’s Development Award.”

In 2010, the Baguio Centennial Commission also recognized the nuns as among the city’s builders for their mission and social enterprise work.

PHOTOS BY RICHARD BALONGLONG/ INQUIRER NORTHERN LUZON

http://bit.ly/tqtHso

Thursday, November 03, 2011

BDO profits jump 19% in nine months

Posted on November 03, 20111 10:26:00 AM

Profits of Sy-led Banco de Oro Unibank, Inc (BDO) climbed by around 19^ in the January to September period on the back of the bank's strong performance across all business segments amid a difficult environment here and abroad.

In a disclosure to the stock exchange this morning, the bank said it earned P7.6 billion in nine months ending in September, higher than the P6.4 billion it booked in the same period last year.

"The bank managed to post a record performance despite the difficult operating environment here and overseas," BDO said in the statement.

Its net interest income inched up by 1.38% to P25.7 billion in the nine-month period from P25.35 billion last year.

The bank's non-interest income, meanwhile, grew by 16% to P15.3 billion.

On the expenditure side, the bank's operating expenses went up by around 5% to P27 billion from P25.78 billion a year ago as it "contained expense growth at manageable levels."

"BDO will continue to maintain cautious stance due to the current economic developments in Europe and the US," the bank said.

BDO's non-performing loans--the ratio of soured loans to total loans--stood at 3.9% improving from 4.7% as of end-2010.

The bank's capital adequacy ratio--a measure of its financial strength--was at 15%, well-above the central bank's 10% minimum requirement. -- Ann Rozainne R. Gregorio
http://bit.ly/u4API6 

Citi names top stock picks

EDC, MPIC, ALI, BDO, AGI on short list

By: Doris C. Dumlao
Philippine Daily Inquirer

Global banking giant Citigroup sees selective opportunities in the Philippine stock market and is particularly upbeat on consumer and infrastructure issues.

Citi’s top five stock picks are Energy Development Corp., Metro Pacific Investments Corp., Ayala Land Inc., Banco de Oro and Alliance Global Group Inc., according to the October 19 equities research written by a team led by Citibank Philippines head of research Minda Olonan and economist Jun Trinidad.

“We favor liquid stocks which have been relative underperformers through the recent downturn and have dominant industry positions and are leveraged on domestic consumption and infra themes,” the research said.

Citi believes that while the Philippines would not be spared from a global downturn, it could still eke out a modest economic growth of 3.7 percent this year and 3.9 percent next year.

The factors seen cushioning downside risks in the Philippines were the following: strong reserve position; stable demand on resilient overseas remittance flows and lower inflation pressure; an improving fiscal position; abundant onshore liquidity; healthy banking and corporate sector; and stable political environment.

With a much better macroeconomic picture than during the last global recession in 2008, the bank said in the research that there would be limited downside risks to its expected Philippine corporate earnings growth of 6.7 percent this year and 13.8 percent next year.
Taking into account higher risk-aversion conditions, Citi sees the Philippine Stock Exchange index trading in line with the historical mean of 14.7 times expected 2012 earnings, or at about 4,500.

On its top stock picks, Citi noted that EDC was the country’s largest geothermal producer and the only listed pure renewable energy player. It also sees potential upside from EDC’s new projects such as wind power generation and overseas ventures and cites its healthy free cash flow and manageable debt level.

MPIC was cited as a play on the infrastructure theme. Citi cited MPIC’s solid existing businesses, noting that this was the country’s largest toll-road operator, sole water distributor in west zone of Metro Manila and owner of Manila Electric Co., the country’s largest electric distribution utility.

Citi sees upside from MPIC’s potential expansion and acquisition plans as well as healthy and improving cash flows of subsidiaries.

The research said ALI was “the biggest integrated Philippine property company professional management with reputation of strong corporate governance; improving margins due to cost-cutting initiatives, improving return on equity from diversification across market segments (commercial, high-to-middle market residential market, business process outsourcing offices) and geographical expansion.

BDO was cited as the largest commercial bank with a dominant market share in the corporate and consumer-lending fields and a strong retail deposit franchise.

AGI was cited as a first mover in the country’s budding gaming industry and one of the leading property developers. Citi said it has been able to leverage on the growing synergies of its leisure and tourism-related operations while holdings in hard liquor (Emperador) and fast-food network McDonalds were a play on consumption.

http://bit.ly/sd9uRI

Wednesday, November 02, 2011

PHL shares fall on heels of losses overseas

VICTOR D. SOLLORANO, GMA News
11/02/2011 | 01:30 PM

On the heels of a general downtrend in global markets, Philippine shares fell in moderate trading marked by plenty of cross transactions, traders said Wednesday.

The main Philippine Stock Exchange index lots 73.13 points or 1.69 percent to close at 4,260.41.

Over 4.679 billion shares worth P4.684 billion changed hands in Wednesday’s session.

While the Philippine market followed the general global trend on fears of contagion from the euro debt crisis, “there is no panic selling and most of the volumes were built on cross transactions," said trader Sonia Lumba of the brokerage firm Yao and Zialcita Inc.

Cross transactions are trades with the buying and selling of shares done by a single broker. “It’ does not reflect a true market sentiment," according to Yao and Zialcita’s trader.

The market was closed for a holiday Monday and Tuesday, and investors found no incentive buy and push the market higher after they were greeted with the news from Wall Street, according to a trader with DW Capital Inc.

Asian shares fell and the euro hovered near three-week lows against the dollar on Wednesday, as investors shed riskier assets after Greece's abrupt call for a referendum rekindled fears about the viability of a European debt deal reached just last week," according to a Reuters report.

Overnight on Wall Street, the Dow Jones industrial average dropped 259.93 points, or 2.17 percent, to 11,695.08, according to a separate Reuters report.

Decliners led winners 112 to 30, with 21 issues closing unchanged in the Philippine bourse. — GMA News  

http://bit.ly/vepGr1