COL’s six-month profit up 24% to P189.3M

LEADING online stock brokerage COL Financial Group Inc. grew its net profit in the first six semester by 23.7 percent year-on-year to P189.3 million on higher earnings from brokerage operations in the Philippines and Hong Kong.

Revenues jumped by 16.7 percent year-on-year to P394.2 million, COL said in a press statement on Friday.

Out of the Philippine operations, revenues jumped by 16.3 percent year-on-year to P371.8 million as commissions increased by 15.6 percent year-on-year to P248.7 million while interest income improved by 9.2 percent to P111 million.

During the first half of 2015, COL handled P91.8 billion worth of trades that went through the
Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE). Aside from higher trading activity in the PSE, COL benefited from the continuous growth of its client base and client equity.

COL’s client base expanded by more than 25,000 in the first six months, allowing it to end the period with 138,628 clients. This was higher by 22.9 percent compared to its end-2014 level of 112,827 and up by 43.8 percent compared its end-June 2014 level of 96,430.

As the brokerage house expanded its client base, total equity of its retail clients breached $1-billion mark or an equivalent P46.7 billion as of end-June.

COL’s market share in terms of value turnover in the PSE reached 3.8 percent during the first half, making it the eight largest stock broker in the country in terms of trading value. In terms of volume of transactions, COL remained as the leading broker in this market as it handled a total of 2.4 million trades equivalent to 19.4 percent of the volume of transactions during the semester.

Meanwhile, COL’s Hong Kong unit saw six-month revenues improving by 22.9 percent year-on-year to P22.3 million, reflecting the strong performance of the Hong Kong stock market. In the first six months of the year, the Hang Seng index increased by 11.2 percent.

On the expenditure side, COL managed to cap the growth of its fixed operating expenses to 10.6 percent. This allowed operating profits to grow by 19.1 percent year-on-year to P236.9 million, faster than the 16.7 percent corresponding rise in revenues.

“We are very pleased with our strong first half results. This we believe is a testament to the growing trust of Filipino investors in COL as their partner in creating wealth,” said COL president and CEO Dino Bate.

“We are more excited about the remaining part of 2015 though as we already opened public access to ‘COL Fund Source,’ our online fund distribution platform, last July 27. Despite minimal marketing effort, a total of 2,700 clients have already invested P109.6 million in various mutual funds ranging from money market funds, bond funds, balanced funds to equity funds. Through ‘COL Fund Source,’ we hope to address the needs of more Filipino investors, so that more Filipino investors can enjoy a richer life,” Bate said.

COL has already signed an agreement to distribute – using the same proprietary platform used for the trading of stocks – mutual funds managed by six of the country’s largest asset management companies which together account for 92.1 percent of the assets under management of the mutual fund industry. Most of the peso-denominated funds of these companies are available for purchase in COL’s website.