GSIS assets expand 17% to P412.6-B as of September

The Government Service Insurance System (GSIS) said yesterday its assets grew 17 percent as of September this year to P412.6 billion from P354 billion a year earler, fuelled by the upsurge in its investments.

"Right now, we may be the most profitable government-owned and controlled corporation and we are on track to hit our profit target of P40 billion for 2006," said GSIS president and general manager Winston F. Garcia.

Garcia said the pension fund’s total investments increased 4.5 percent to P275.8 billion from P264 billion a year ago.

In the nine months ending September this year, investment income increased to P13.6 billion, 39 percent higher than the year ago’s P9.8 billion, mainly due to the efficient management of funds.

"We are reaping the rewards of being an active player in a very bullish market. We knew that for our profit to grow the way it has grown we had to concentrate on blue chip companies, and we did," said Garcia.

Just recently, GSIS sold its 12.7-percent stake in the country’s third largest leader Equitable PCI Bank to the group of retail tycoon Henry Sy for P8.7 billion.

With its prudent cost management, the GSIS has likewise effectively extended its actuarial life by 12 years from 2028 to 2040. The actuarial life is virtually the mortality rate of the fund, the period by which it can service all its members’ claims and benefits.

"We have stemmed the actuarial decline. We managed to do this despite consistently implementing pension increases. It’s like hitting two birds with one stone," Garcia said.

"Our target is to increase our actuarial life further to 2100. With the way things are shaping up, we may reach this target sooner than we expect," Garcia added.

For the past five years, the GSIS has consistently offered pension increases by a total of 17.5 percent or an average 3.5-percent increase each yea