GSIS to sell thrift bank subsidiary in next 3 months

MANILA, Philippines–State-run pension fund Government Service Insurance System (GSIS) has expressed confidence that it could finally sell its thrift banking unit this year as legal barriers had been cleared up.

GSIS president and general manager Robert G. Vergara told reporters that they would publish the invitation to bid for GSIS Family Bank “in the next couple of weeks.”

The actual public bidding for the sale of GSIS Family Bank would be “within three months from now,” according to Vergara. “It will be a complete disposal of our shares; the bank needs a strategic investor to seize opportunities amid economic growth.”

With no more other claimants to the bank that is 99-percent owned by GSIS, Vergara said local as well as foreign banks might buy GSIS Family Bank.

Vergara said the bank has 22 branches mostly outside Metro Manila. The state-owned Development Bank of the Philippines, which advised GSIS when it first planned to sell the thrift bank in 2011, had pegged the end-2014 value of GSIS Family Bank at P520-670 million, Vergara said.

The GSIS executive said middle-tier players have expressed interest in the bank when it was supposed to be auctioned in 2011. Since the banking sector has been liberalized, foreign entities might also be interested in the small thrift bank, he added.

The incentives reinstated by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas to the prospective buyer of GSIS Family Bank would “hopefully be attractive and valuable,” Vergara said.