Biz Buzz: Fans of annual shareholders’ meetings go digital
Most investors don’t have time to attend shareholders’ meetings of listed companies. They often run too long and usually occur smack in the middle of working hours (except for the Philippine Stock Exchange’s annual Saturday habit).
But some people love them. And this being 2016, that love has gone digital with those hardcore annual meeting fans having organized themselves on Facebook to track schedules these companies disclosed to the PSE.
The closed group, called “Takam,” now has close to 300 members who seem to be a friendly mix of truly interested investors who also happen to know the value of a delicious free meal in a fancy setting. What’s the harm, these companies rake in billions after all, right?
Takam’s Facebook description outlines the price to enter these annual meetings.
“Buy at least one board lot before the deadline, get it certified by your broker, then we will see you on one of the events!” Takam proudly states.
Once inside an annual meeting, investors get the opportunity to meet the board of directors, the CEO and chair and listen and learn from their insights and plans. As an added bonus, the page says you can “mingle with fellow investors and make new friends who might be secret millionaires!”
Frequently asked questions are also answered for newbies, albeit, in a hilarious manner.
What should one wear?: “Smart causal, polo shirt is OK.” Does one need to speak English?: “No need. You don’t even need to talk to your seatmate.”
Can you bring along your partner, lover? Yes, as long as they have a separate certificate, “otherwise ‘galit-galit’ muna kayo (not be in good terms for the time being).”
The page now has multiple entries, some of which have investors discussing how they feel about a certain company. Sometimes, those discussions center on how generous or stingy a company is with the food at their stockholders’ meetings.
In any case, this is overall a good thing if it encourages more people to invest in our stock market, where participation is limited to less than 1 percent of the population. Who knows? If their experiences are good, they may buy even more shares than just the bare minimum. Miguel R. Camus
Transitions: More fun in the Philippines
A LOT of grumbling can be heard within the halls of this particular government department as the new crew of the incoming secretary seems to be earnestly trying to ease out many officials already in place, some of them veterans of several successful programs under various secretaries.
Biz Buzz has learned that this agency will, so far, be hosting the biggest group of outsiders brought in by an incoming department head. This marks a reversal from previous Cabinet secretaries who only brought in, at most, three staffers (like their personal driver, office assistant and security aide). Instead of bringing an entire caboodle of people, past secretaries relied on the officials and staffers already working at the agency to implement its programs.
But times change and observers noted that the new secretary’s crew didn’t seem to be even slightly interested in the briefings for them by the agency’s current crop of officials.
One member of the new secretary’s crew, supposed to be assigned as an undersecretary, even complained of “information overload” on social media, even if this incoming official was observed to be merely texting and working the cellphone during the briefing.
Another incoming undersecretary also complained during the briefing that the people who were making their presentations were being “sadists” by burying the new department secretary under a ton of information. Naturally, the undersecretary-to-be kept cutting off and shortening the presentations of the department officials.
And while the incoming Cabinet secretary has already assured the public and the stakeholders the agency serves of continuity of the outgoing secretary’s programs, stakeholders wonder how this can be achieved when the new secretary’s crew can hardly sit still to listen to briefings of the agency’s programs.
Biz Buzz sources also noticed that the incoming secretary’s crew appear to be more concerned about what positions in the agency were still vacant, which of the incumbent officials have Ceso credentials and how much the salaries were for certain positions.
And another frequent topic apparently was whether spouses could accompany them during the incoming officials’ trips abroad. Truly, it’s more fun in the Philippines. Or will that change, too? Daxim L. Lucas
Disaster hub
COGNIZANT of the country’s vulnerability to natural disasters, Philippine business and civil society leaders through umbrella organization Philippine Disaster Resilience Foundation (PDRF) have launched PDRF Emergency Operations Center (EOC), a new 24/7 self-sufficient operations hub geared toward training for disaster preparedness and coordination of response and recovery efforts during major disasters. This is the first ever national private sector-led national EOC in the region today.
The EOC provides and coordinates warning, disaster evacuation, inventory of assets and emergency services integration. It has advanced communications software and technology that will allow the monitoring of climate-related and natural hazards and close coordination with deployed resources in the field. It is currently housed at the Shell House at 156 Valero St., Salcedo Village, Makati, which will serve as a satellite operations center while the permanent operations center in Clark—targeted to be fully functional by the first quarter of 2017—is being developed.
PDRF’s main partner for this project is Earthquakes and Megacities Initiative (EMI), an international non-profit, scientific, non-governmental organization dedicated to advancing urban disaster risk reduction knowledge, policy and practice.
The hub has the following objectives: Ensure coordination and collaboration by building an ecosystem of corporations and partners to collaborate and coordinate with the government and international humanitarian organizations in disaster risk reduction management; to empower individual businesses to build their own disaster resilience, and strengthen the preparedness of small and medium enterprises that work directly with larger organizations so that they may be as prepared as the bigger corporations they support.
The EOC was blessed by H.E. Luis Antonio Cardinal Tagle, who serves as one of the PDRF co-chairs along with Manuel V. Pangilinan and Jaime Augusto Zobel de Ayala. Big groups like Aboitiz Foundation, Ayala group, International Container Terminal Services Inc., Jollibee Group Foundation, Liwayway Marketing Corp., Pilipinas Shell, PJ Lhuillier Inc., PLDT, Smart and San Miguel Corp. pooled resources to put up this crucial initiative. Doris Dumlao-Abadilla
Curtain raiser
IT TOOK quite some time for the local stock market to raise the curtain for any initial public offering (IPO) this year, with the political uncertainties arising from the presidential elections and all. Finally, one company braved the capital market and will list its shares on the stock market today. It’s no other than “death care” service provider Golden Haven Memorial Park Inc., which sold 74.1 million shares or 15 percent of its capital stock to the public at P10.50 a share.
Golden Haven—led by the Villar family, which is an ally of the incoming president—will list on the main board of the Philippine Stock Exchange under the ticker “HVN.” It is a bite-sized IPO, worth only P778 million, and is largely a domestic investor play.
Although the IPO had been planned long before it was certain that Duterte would win the presidency, it’s indeed a funny coincidence that the first IPO this year will have death-related services as its core business.
Golden Haven’s IPO was priced in line with the current trading multiples of comparable peers in the region. Its peers in this death care play are Nirvana Asia (the biggest death care provider in Asia), Fu Shou Yuan (the largest provider of funeral services in China) and Lung Yen Life Service (dominant cemetery and funeral services company in Taiwan). Doris Dumlao-Abadilla
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