Stock News 2011: BDO net income soars 46% to P8.8 B

Banco De Oro Unibank, Inc. (BDO) reported a 46 percent jump in audited net income last year to P8.8 billion from the P6 billion it earned in 2009, exceeding its initial earnings guidance of P8.1 billion.

The Bank, prior to the income release, has reported that its consolidated resources hit the P1-trillion mark at the end of 2010, making it the first Philippine bank to achieve that milestone.

In a disclosure to the Philippine Stock Exchange, BDO said its strong performance was a result of a more diversified and sustainable earnings stream from its core lending, deposit-taking and service businesses.

Gross customer loans expanded 15 percent to P541.5 billion with firm growth across all business segments. Total deposits, meanwhile, rose 13 percent to P782.6 billion.

A larger earning asset base coupled with lower funding costs resulted in the 12-percent increase in net interest income to P34.2 billion.

The bank’s fee-based service income likewise grew to P10.4 billion on strong contributions from trust, private banking, remittance, transaction banking, insurance, investment banking, and credit cards.

http://www.mb.com.ph/node/306767/bdo-net-income-

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Stock News 2011: NCH eyes local retail market

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NCH Philippines Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of US-based NCH Corp. located in Dallas, Texas has been operating quietly in the Philippines since 1968 but hardly anyone in the Philippines knows about its existence, except for industrial clients like maintenance engineers and companies involved in maintenance services.

Yet, this widely diversified group — both in products and markets — sold in 2009 (despite the global financial crunch) a total of $943 million in the US, North America, Europe, the Philippines, Asia and Latin America while most of its competitors have slid or folded up.

Its entry into the Philippines in 1968 was in owning 40 percent and being only a division of the highly-diversified Jardine Davies group(that included International Harvester, Hapag Lloyd Shipping and others), squeezing its way to the top until it finally bought 100 percent of Jardine in 1981. Its first Filipino country manager was Tristan Villareal, followed by two Americans. Currently, another Filipino, Ernie Gutierrez is at the helm until he turns it over to Rodolfo Arellano beginning May 1, 2011. May is the start of the fiscal year of the company.

http://www.philstar.com/Article.aspx?articleId=661509&publicationSubCategoryId=78

Stock News 2011: Software firm targets global market

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Once more: Yes, the Filipino can.

In another rendition of the battle cry to push for global recognition for Filipino talents, a local software development firm is making the move in the global spotlight.

“Our dream is to create a Filipino technology company admired by the world,” said Carlen Martin Legaspi, president and CEO of Orange & Bronze Software Labs (O&B).

“We have very good software developers and great IT talents but there isn’t one Filipino IT company that we can point to that is the peer of global players,” Legaspi said.

Monchito Ibrahim, commissioner of the Commission on Information and Communications Technology (CICT), who has more than 35 years’ experience in the ICT industry, graced the launch and lauded the move, saying ICT is one area where technopreneurs can be very successful, though the market space has changed a lot and there is going to be more competition.

http://www.philstar.com/Article.aspx?articleId=661458&publicationSubCategoryId=71

Stock News 2011: Samsung leads Phl compact camera market

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Samsung, the world leader in technology innovation, is now the leader in the digital still camera (DSC) market in the Philippines with its compact cameras.

In a retail audit by the international and independent GfK Research Group, data gathered from retailers and resellers showed Samsung as the new leader in the compact cameras with fixed lens category of the DSC market in the last two months of 2010.

In this category which comprises 91.3 percent of the DSC market, Samsung became the top-selling brand in terms of unit sales with 21.7 market share in November, and 22.7 percent in December 2010.

The success of Samsung’s compact digital cameras is attributed to the company’s strengthened sales channels and its growing number of competitive products in the market.

http://www.philstar.com/Article.aspx?articleId=661463&publicationSubCategoryId=71

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Stock News 2011: Panasonic takes Inverter technology a notch higher

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Panasonic, a world leader in home applian-ces, takes its now-imitated Inverter technology a notch higher with the introduction of its 2011 line of Inverter-equipped air-conditioners.

Touting its flowing curves, intuitive intelligence while blowing cool, clean and healthy air to protect the health of consumers, the Panasonic split-type air-conditioners for 2011 still promises tremendous energy savings and at the same time introduces a couple of other features that are not only helpful in realizing electricity savings but also reduces energy wastage for the sake of the environment.

This year’s new models include EcoNavi, another global ecological standard innovation introduced by Panasonic, furthering its corporate objective of going “green” in its products but definitely without sacrificing a comfortable lifestyle.

After the success of the Inverter technology that promised huge electricity savings, Panasonic, true to its innovative and pioneering commitment to help protect the environment, introduces EcoNavi, an intelligent and ecologically sound function that works by self-detecting where energy is wasted and self-adjusts its cooling power to reduce energy wastage.

So how does the EcoNavi concept of the new Panasonic air-conditioner models work? The technology employs high-precision human sensor and control program technologies in order to optimize the operations of a Panasonic air-conditioner depending on specific room conditions.

Now how is energy saved? The technologies determine where energy is normally wasted, and then self-adjusts the cooling power to help save energy in the most efficient manner but still continue to enjoy uninterrupted cooling, utmost comfort and convenience.

http://www.philstar.com/Article.aspx?articleId=661461&publicationSubCategoryId=71

Stock News 2011: Meralco says customers to see lower bills

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The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) reported over the weekend that banks' non-performing loans (NPL) ratio last year dipped further to 2.88 percent, lower than end-2009's 2.97 percent due to the industry's improving capital health.

The end-December NPL ratio was also the lowest recorded ratio for universal and commercial banks since the 1997 Asian financial crisis, said the BSP, and the 27th consecutive month that the NPL ratio has been below four percent.

BSP in a statement said the NPL ratio eased by 0.19 percentage point compared to November's 3.07 percent and by 0.09 percentage point from the previous year's ratio.

Improvement to the ratio resulted from the 3.04 percent drop in total NPLs of P80.8 billion from P83.33 billion in November and the 3.34 percent growth in total loan portfolio of P2.8 trillion in December from P2.71 trillion a month before. NPLs are loans that have remained unpaid for 90 days

At the end of December, provisioning for bad loans led to the NPL coverage ratio improving to 118.35 percent from November's 116.53. The non-performing assets (NPA) coverage ratio widened to 60.04 percent from 59.68 percent in the previous month. Year-on-year, the BSP said NPL and NPA coverage ratios increased reference ratios of 112.34 percent and 54.88 percent, respectively. Total NPAs amounted to P205.5 billion.

http://www.mb.com.ph/node/306536/bank

Stock News 2011: Chinabank profit rises 22% to P5 billion

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China Banking Corporation reported robust gains in 2010 with its audited net income improving by 22 percent to P5 billion on the back of continued loans growth and improved trading gains.

The bank said its fee-based businesses such as bancassurance, private banking, cash management and remittances also contributed to the earnings growth.

China Bank’s 2010 financial ratios underscore its sustained profitability in 2010: return on equity of 16.69 percent from 15.36 percent, return on assets of 2.15 percent from 1.90 percent.

“2010 was a year of dynamic growth for China Bank. We continued to pursue our aggressive expansion program ‘ branch openings, ATMs and even exceeded our income target of P4.4 billion,” said China Bank president Peter S. Dee.

http://www.mb.com.ph/node/306355/chinabank-profit-ri