GCG vs Pagcor

They may have beaten their revenue target for 2015 by a wide margin, but that doesn’t mean that the officials of Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp. (Pagcor) have been shown some love by the government they’re part of.

Biz Buzz learned that Pagcor employees, to this day, have yet to receive their Christmas bonuses, the approval for which is being held up by another government agency in charge of reviewing the performance of other state-run agencies.

We’re talking, of course, about the Governance Commission for GOCCs (GCG), which is mandated by law to set performance parameters for government-owned and -controlled  corporations. In fairness to the GCG, many GOCCs are non- or poorly performing agencies that warrant close supervision. But Pagcor is clearly a different animal, having helped rake in P130 billion for the Philippine gaming industry last year, representing a 17-percent increase.

We’re told that, when GCG set a high revenue target for Pagcor last year, the officials of the state gaming regulator scratched their heads because they found it unreasonably high. But they hunkered down and worked toward meeting that goal. When the dust cleared, Pagcor not only met the GCG goal but even beat it by a wide margin.

Despite this, GCG has not acted on the bonus of Pagcor employees in time for the holidays. What’s worse is that GCG has yet to approve the previous bonus for Pagcor (which breaks down employee bonuses into four quarters of the year instead of a big one at yearend).

That means there are now two pending approvals for Pagcor bonuses sitting on the desks of GCG officials, without any indication of when they will be disbursed to the deserving employees.

Before long, it will be time for GCG to sit down with Pagcor officials again and set performance goals for 2016.

Given the history between both agencies, expect Pagcor officials to be given another “impossible” revenue goal.

We’re told that some in the Pagcor hierarchy are now wondering if the GCG guys have something personal against them… or if there’s some other hidden agenda behind all the roadblocks. Daxim L. Lucas

Banner year

ASIDE from the landmark P36.9-billion capital infusion by Japanese Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ (BTMU), Security Bank has another ace up its sleeve.

We heard that the fourth quarter of 2015 was exceptionally good for Security Bank, allowing the bank to post the highest annual net profit in its history for 2015. The bank’s highest net profit so far was achieved in 2012 when it racked up P7.5 billion.

At the sidelines of the BTMU deal-signing yesterday, Security Bank president Alfonso Salcedo Jr. confirmed to Biz Buzz that for the full-year 2015, the bank was on track to beat the P7.5-billion record net profit seen two years ago. “We have a good shot,” he said.

Note that in the first nine months, the bank’s net profit even dipped by 4.7 percent year-on-year to P6.1 billion in the absence of substantial trading gains that buoyed earnings in the comparative year. This means the fourth quarter made up for the earlier slack, notwithstanding all the financial market volatility.

Asked what exactly happened in the fourth quarter, Salcedo said core revenues were very good. “Also, our retail business is kicking in. We can feel it. We can see it in our margins that it’s kicking in,” he said.

For 2016, Salcedo said the bank was expecting a better performance—even when its full-year budgets have not taken into account the bigger war chest coming from the BTMU deal.  For the meantime, Security Bank’s return on equity is expected to drop (it was at 16 percent in the first nine months of 2015) because the equity will expand substantially with BTMU’s capital infusion. “So hopefully, we’d like to use it within the next two years,” he said.

As stated, the ambition is to be among the country’s top four or five banks in the next three to four years despite being an “independent” player or not being part of any of the country’s large local conglomerates. Doris Dumlao-Abadilla

Lucio Co’s adviser

EX-INVESTMENT banker Roberto Juanchito “Jojo” Dispo, former president of First Metro Investments Corp., has long been friends with emerging taipan Lucio Co. But now that he’s no longer part of FMIC, he has more leeway to help the big boss of Puregold Price Club and Cosco Capital pursue more mergers and acquisitions. After taking over Philippine Bank of Communications (PBCom) and getting a nice trophy along Ayala Avenue—the 34-story Tower 6789 or formerly Alphaland Tower—we heard that Co still has a long shopping list.

Dispo was recently appointed by PBCom as adviser to the board of directors, which the bank said complemented its strategic direction considering his depth of experience in both commercial and investment banking. Cosco Capital also appointed Dispo as an adviser to the board, citing his “broad experience in investments, strategic acquisition and management including his previous position as deputy treasurer of the Philippines (which) could provide the board with expert guidance to be a more competitive conglomerate in the Philippine market.”

These are on top of Dispo’s new day job as president of Laguna-based electronics manufacturer Cirtek Holdings Philippines Corp. (TECH), which he helped raise fresh capital via a follow-on offering last year as one of the last deals he completed as president of FMIC. Doris Dumlao-Abadilla

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