BIZ BUZZ: Reinventing ALI

Two years into the pandemic, people have learned to shop for groceries, novelty items, ready-to-eat meals, pet care and even plants using apps and websites. Cyberspace has also become extremely useful for residential property developers, especially those whose with well-known brands.

In the case of Ayala Land Inc. (ALI), digital sales now account for 22 percent of total residential sales, surging from less than 2 percent before the pandemic, said Bernard Vincent Dy, president of ALI.

Buyers still eventually go to the actual site once they have begun their buying process online.

With the relaxation of local lockdown protocols, ALI was among the first to resume in-person investor and media briefings when it reported 2021 earnings last week.

However, its upcoming annual stockholders’ meeting on April 27 will still be conducted virtually.

And as more residential selling have been conducted online, turnover of completed units has likewise gone mostly virtual (65 percent of turned over units in 2021).

This digitalization is part of ALI’s business “reinvention,” Dy said. Similarly, ALI’s shopping mall arm AyalaMalls has been doing more curbside pickup, personal shopper and digital sales through the Zing mall app. Construction arm Makati Development Corp. has pivoted to offsite manufacturing of 38 percent of its construction work, including the prefabrication of panel walls and bathrooms.

Apart from reinventing its processes, Dy highlighted other components of ALI’s five-point thrust during this pandemic.

These include taking care of customers and communities through 24×7 services to residents and business locators; taking care of employees by providing health facilities for mild COVID patients, vaccination and supplemental insurance for COVID-related expenses, and flexible work arrangements; assisting stakeholders, such as by offering discounted rental rates for mall merchants (normalization isn’t expected until yearend), providing free mall space to social enterprises, ensuring timely payment to suppliers (kindness and fairness especially to small and medium enterprises bring good karma); giving assistance to neighboring communities and hospitals; and ensuring balance sheet strength to weather crisis and position the company for renewed growth postpandemic.

—Doris Dumlao-Abadilla

New RCBC treasurer

Veteran banker Horacio “Ricky” Cebrero III has retired as treasurer of Yuchengco family-led Rizal Commercial Banking Corp. (RCBC). His deputy in the last three years, Alberto “Tito” Pedrosa, has taken over the post effective March 4.

“He is well-versed in treasury, investment transactions, and everything about treasury,” Cebrero said as he introduced his successor during the bank’s recent briefing on 2021 results (RCBC ended last year with record-high net profit of P7.1 billion, up by 41 percent).

“He has been making money for the bank for the past years, and we are very, very confident that he will bring RCBC, together with the RCBC team, to another level, to a higher growth rate,” said Cebrero, who will remain onboard as consultant.

Pedrosa previously headed RCBC’s asset and liability management in RCBC’s treasury group, before which he headed investment markets trading and balance sheet management group.

Pedrosa completed his BS degree in Commerce majoring in Philosophy at the London School of Economics and started his banking career when he joined BPI’s officer training program in 1993.

—Doris Dumlao-Abadilla

Double win

The SM group has been recognized a number of times of late from international award-giving bodies and publications, but some are more valuable than others.

And nowadays, few things are as important as the recognition one gets for sustainability initiatives in a world that is rapidly realizing the value of companies’ adherence to environmental, social and governance (ESG) principles, in addition to traditional financial metrics.

Recently, SM Investments Corp. and BDO Unibank Inc. received the highest honors for their performance on sustainability initiatives from multimedia company the Asset Publishing and Research Ltd. based in Hong Kong.

SM Investments won the coveted Platinum Award during the recent The Asset ESG Corporate Awards 2021 for the 13th consecutive year. BDO similarly received the Platinum Award for the 12th consecutive year. The awarding ceremony was held last month.

The award recognizes companies in Asia for their performance in metrics including financial management, corporate governance; and social and environmental responsibility.

SM Investments, meanwhile, was also recognized as the Best Investor Relations Team, the fourth time the company received the award from The Asset.

In a statement, the SM group said the awards affirm the conglomerate’s “continuing efforts to celebrate and share pride and progress to its growing communities.”

—Daxim L. Lucas INQ