Investments paying off

With the way their companies are performing, it seems that recent investments made by the Yuchengco family have been reaping their appropriate rewards.

Putting a well-respected professional, Dr. Rey Vea, on top of Mapua Institute of Technology is proving to be a good move as enrolment in the country’s premiere engineering school has significantly increased since the family takeover. Less than 10 years after the family’s acquisition of the 80 plus old institution, it has already fulfilled its long-term development expansion plan of putting up a secondary institution with emphasis on a science-oriented curriculum, through the Malayan Colleges Laguna.

In the area of engineering and construction, EEI continues to rake in billions of pesos in and is the biggest profit center for the family’s House of Investments.  

Malayan Insurance remains as one of the leading if not the number one insurance company, while Grepalife and Great Life Insurance are both among the top 10 life insurance firms in the Philippines.

In the area of banking, Helen Dee’s aggressive decision-making had also been producing the desired results. After personally hand-picking her president and CEO, and then beefing up RCBC’s workforce by hiring some 100 new members of the management team, the bank has so far shown strength both in its performance and standing in the industry.

Amidst the persistence of a down market, RCBC financial figures vis-à-vis its peers’ in the banking industry’s top five players show the Yuchengco bank posting one of the least declines over 2007. The bank obviously timed the market very well and was able to unload of its holdings of structured products way ahead of the global financial crunch.

Over and above that, RCBC has continued to introduce new and exciting products and services which only goes to show the innovativeness of its product development team led by its Retail Banking head Mike Sandig. His baby, RCBC MyWallet, has lured huge accounts such as the UST Alumni Association and the MRT into banking with RCBC. Sandig is said to be on his way to achieving RCBC president Lorenzo Tan’s vision for RCBC to have five million customers in five years, way ahead of schedule.

There surely are good reasons for Ambassador Yuchengco to sit back and concentrate on his philanthropic concerns now that his companies are all in able hands. He must be really be enjoying the view from the top (the penthouse of RCBC Plaza) while doing his regular workouts. 

Bucket pricing myths

One of the main reasons why mobile texting, and partly calling, has become a way of life for most Filipinos, to be exact around 70 percent of the population, is the advent of bucket pricing or what is more known as unlimited texting and calling.

For a minimal price, one gets to text or call or both one to sawa for a fixed number of days.

But are we really getting our money’s worth?

One provider offers a day’s worth of unlimited texts and calls for just P25. But is this really a good proposition? Good if the telco’s network does not suffer from high rates of dropped and blocked calls and the signal quality is good. What if it is not? How can you possibly make full use of the P25 unlimited rate if you can’t even get a signal in the first place?

Are consumers patronizing the service of poor quality service providers because they are blinded by the bucket pricing scheme? What if they have a better choice, a telco that can offer the lowest possible unlimited call and text rates and good signal quality to go with it? Won’t you make the switch?

Apologies in order

When we wrote about Prudential Guarantee and the rumor going around in coffee shops about the company, we ended the article by saying that we hope all these are plain rumors. After all, nobody wants to see an insurance company fail because of the thousands of people that will suffer in such an event.

So let me be the first to apologize to Robert Coyuito and the men and women of Prudential Guarantee for the inconvenience caused by the article to the business and the alleged ‘serious damage’ caused to some of PGA’s clients. This was never our intention. If Robert is saying that I’m wrong, then I’m glad to be wrong this time. Then I stand corrected.

Let me now quote from the letter of Prudential counsel Jose Calida hopefully to end the speculation about Prudential and its business once and for all. The letter was published in full a few days ago so let me just quote portions of it to set the record straight.

“PGA stands by its record as the largest provider of aviation, marine, commercial property, construction, surety, casualty, motorcar, personal accident, D&O, E&O, and other insurance requirements. It also stands by its statement that it settled the biggest single claim in Philippine insurance history regarding the ill-fated Air Philippine Flight 541.

“PGA is the insurer of Air Philippines as well as AAR Aircraft and Engine Corp., the aircraft lessor. As insurer, PGA indemnifies both parties in case of the happening of the insured event...In reinsuring the risk to other reinsurers, PGA becomes the “reinsured.” This discipline is meant to protect the policy holders from their insurance company being brought down by a single event loss. Hence, in case of the happening of the loss, the reinsurers must pay PGA (the reinsured) which in turn pays the claimants. However, in the event that a reinsurer should fail to pay for any reason, the reinsured steps in to take up the burden.

“Due to the length of time from the occurrence of the event until the settlement of defendant AAR Aircraft in the US courts, a number of PGA’s reinsurers had by then become insolvent. Thus, PGA, as the insurer had to pay from its own pocket to cover up for the liabilities of those delinquent and insolvent reinsurers. A total of $165 million (at that time P7.5 billion) was shelled out by PGA, and the remaining solvent reinsurers in settling the case. As a matter of fact, in addition to the settlement of P7.5 billion, PGA also paid P183 million for the 77 passengers and crew as well as P20 million for the lost aircraft. This debunks and belies Ms. Reyes’ malicious and mocking statements that PGA did not shell out a single centavo or that if it did, it was just a minimal amount.

 “Regarding the alleged ‘disaccreditation’ by some unnamed banks, please be informed that the giants in the banking industry in the country like Metrobank, Banco de Oro, BPI, HSBC, etc. have accredited PGA. If there are any minor banks that have not accredited PGA, it is neither PGA’s fault nor a reflection of PGA’s financial capability and trustworthiness as an insurance company.”

For comments, e-mail at [email protected]