Biz Buzz: Forbes Park dispute continues

THE WAR goes on, apparently, over the Forbes Park house of Dr. Daniel Vasquez and its longtime resident Edna Camcam. The latest development seems to favor the Vasquez camp, which got the Housing and Land Use Regulatory Board (HLURB) to order the Forbes Park Association (FPA) to cancel the benefits given to Camcam and her daughter—specifically 14 resident car stickers issued to them (since they do not have a lease contract with the house owner, according to the Vasquez camp).

The decision was issued earlier this month and stemmed from the complaint of Vazquez, who owns the house at 3 Cambridge Circle. He alleged that Camcam and daughter, Ma. Victoria Gonzalez Joaquin, were “illegal occupants” and were thus not members of the association.

To recall, Camcam filed for ownership of the house in 2012, years after enjoying free use of it and acknowledging in a 1998 legal warranty that Vazquez owned the property. Her complaint came shortly after Vazquez asked her to vacate the house in 2011. Vazquez had already won a court ruling evicting Camcam from the property. Camcam also lost her claim for ownership in the regional trial court. Her appeal is pending at the Court of Appeals.

Vazquez said he originally allowed Camcam to stay in the property as a favor to the late Gen. Fabian Ver, who asked him to take care of Camcam and her children.

In any case, the officials of FPA are Rodolfo D. Robles, Manuel A. Dizon, Maria Teresa P. Gallego, Carmelita A.S. Ascalon, Ma. Carmencita T. Lopez, Maria Isabel S. Tesoro and Fernando Zobel de Ayala. FPA’s legal counsel, the Siguion Reyna law office, earlier issued a legal opinion stating that Camcam was not a member of FPA and therefore not entitled to homeowners’ privileges.

This same opinion stated that Camcam’s privileges should be revoked despite the pendency of the ejectment and ownership cases because the issue regarding homeowners’ privileges was distinct from the issue of ownership or possession of the property.

Despite the legal opinion by its own counsel, however, FPA continued granting homeowners’ privileges to Camcam, Vasquez’ camp pointed out.

In his complaint, Vazquez questioned FPA why he—the owner of the property and a member of FPA—was being asked to produce a court order for FPA to stop giving benefits to Camcam. He pointed out that FPA had not asked Camcam, who is not a member, to produce a similar court order for her to continue enjoying such benefits, let alone show a lease contract to prove she was a member of the association. Daxim L. Lucas

Bancassurance boom

BEAUTY queen and 2013 Miss World titleholder Megan Young may have done wonders for Security Bank for its rebranding strategy. But in terms of bringing actual profits, one recent move that’s likely to bring more moolah immediately is the fledgling bancassurance partnership with FWD Group, the insurance arm of Hong Kong tycoon Richard Li’s Pacific Century Group.

Launched only last March, newly installed Security Bank president Alfonso “Yogi” Salcedo Jr. was pleasantly surprised at how the partnership with FWD had turned out. Knowing how difficult it was to start a bancassurance venture from scratch, he said “it’s incredible on their side—the way that this has ramped up.”

Speaking to reporters after a grand party Thursday last week where he was introduced to bank clients and stakeholders, Salcedo shared how impressed he was with FWD’s rollout. “They plan to be a disruptor,” he pointed out.

As a result, Salcedo said he expected Security Bank’s share from this new business to cross the nine-digit level or hundreds of million pesos on its first 12 months of operations. As such, this could turn out to be bigger than any of the bank’s existing fee-based businesses.

The thing is, FWD hasn’t even tapped all of Security Bank’s branches yet in selling life insurance. Salcedo said only half of the bank’s 257 existing branch network had been activated for the bancassurance partnership. By next year, the bank—in support of its foray into retail banking—also intends to expand its branch network to 300. Doris Dumlao-Abadilla

XTS now

TODAY is the day for the Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE) to launch its new trading system the PSEtrade XTS, which runs on Nasdaq technology. Hopefully, the rollout will be without glitches.

“We are confident that this platform will aid us in our commitment to provide more services responsive to the needs of investors and other stakeholders,” PSE president Hans Sicat. “We appreciate the commitment of Nasdaq to see this project through. We count on them to provide continuous support as we use this trading system.”

More importantly, the PSE has addressed concerns that the new trading engine would be open to the abuse of the “split order” feature, which refers to an option in the new trading system to break down one large order into several batches, whether of uniform size or in random quantity.

If used aggressively, it could be made to appear that there’s unusual activity—that there are many people buying and selling, and more so if randomly split. The brokers who have warned of this potential loophole have been assured that the matter has been addressed.

PSEtrade XTS is prepared to handle more volumes and trades even as the local stock market has seen the number trades increase almost fivefold from 2010. This technology is used in more than 100 markets across the United States, Europe, Asia, Australia, Africa and the Middle East. In Southeast Asia, this technology is also used by Bursa Malaysia, Singapore Exchange and the Indonesia Stock Exchange.

Since July last year, the PSE has prepared for the system migration through training and certification for traders, rehearsals for all market participants and a series of fora. Doris Dumlao-Abadilla

Passing the torch

COMING off a very challenging period for the company he runs, insurance industry veteran Bobby Madrid seems to be meeting the challenge of running a multinational financial giant, if early numbers are any indication.

We’re talking about Philippine American Life and General Insurance Co. (or Philamlife) of course, which had been through the wringer in recent years following developments at its parent firm after the 2008 global financial crisis.

According to our sources, Madrid’s “passion and people-centered management style” has so far helped Philamlife’s total assets hit P226.8 billion and net worth reach P85.2 billion as of the latest reporting period.

On the other hand, total revenues stood at P35.2 billion, including gross premiums of P18.6 billion and investment income of P12.5 billion. Moreover, Philamlife’s bancassurance arm, BPI-Philam, also posted strong results in 2014 with total assets of P63.5 billion, net worth of P7.9 billion and gross premiums of P14.5 billion.

Given that the decision to name Madrid the interim CEO of Philam has yielded these results, there is now talk of plans to move him to a more strategic position within the organization.

In the meantime, the company named J. Axel Bromley its new CEO beginning this month to continue the momentum that Madrid started. Daxim L. Lucas

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