COL Financial net income dips by 13.6%

COL FINANCIAL Group Inc., a listed Internet-based stock brokerage, on Tuesday day reported that its profit slid in 2014 due to non-recurring expenses and less trading activity.

In a stock exchange filing, COL Financial said that net income fell 13.6 percent to P262.3 million in 2014 compared with that of the previous year. It attributed the decline mainly to the booking of P30.4 million in “non-recurring” expenses from the exercise of stock options.

In terms of recurring profits, the company said net income fell 3.6 percent to P292.7 million. COL Financial said the decline was slower than the 16.3-percent drop of the Philippine Stock Exchange’s value turnover, COL Financial said.

But the company pointed out that it managed to extend its market share in 2014 when it launched new products.

Its market share in terms of value turnover in the Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE) improved by 50 basis points to 4.1 percent, from 3.6 percent in 2013, the filing showed.

Market share in terms of local value turnover increased even more significantly to a fresh record high of 8.2 percent in 2014, from 7.5 percent in 2013. These gains allowed COL Financial to become the eighth “largest stockbroker in the PSE”—a notch higher from its 2013 ranking, the filing showed. The improvement in COL Financial’s market share is largely attributable to the strong growth of its customer base.

COL Financial’s customer base finally breached the 100,000 mark in 2014 to end the year at almost 113,000—36.8 percent higher than that of the previous year. Customer equity also expanded by 18.3 percent to P56.7 billion as of end 2014.

“COL’s record numbers in terms of customer base and share of value turnover could not have come at a more opportune time as we celebrated our 15th anniversary in 2014,” said COL President Dino Bate. “However, we are more excited about 2015 as we start with another leg of our business, our fund distribution business.”

The new service, he said, “will allow us to address the needs of more Filipino investors, particularly those who either do not have the time to actively manage their investments, are more conservative, or are looking to diversify their portfolios outside of stocks.”

Already, COL has signed agreements with six asset management companies: Sun Life Asset Management, ATR KimEng Asset Management, Philam Asset Management, Philequity Management, BPI Investment Management, and First Metro Asset Management.

The six companies together account for 92.1 percent of the assets under management of the mutual fund industry.

All the peso denominate funds of the six asset management companies—bond funds, balanced funds, equity funds, and money market funds—will be available for purchase at COL’s website once the fund distribution business is launched later this year. Miguel R. Camus