COL Financial incurs 7.5% profit drop

MANILA, Philippines - Leading online stockbroker COL Financial Group (COL) recorded a 7.5- percent decline in its nine-month net income to P266.5 million due to increased expenses and the poor performance of its overseas unit in Hong Kong.

Revenues from Hong Kong slipped by 53 percent to P43.9 million amid sluggish market conditions.

COL also incurred higher expenses for its Philippine business, amounting to P169.9 million or 32 percent higher.

The company, however, reported a 19- percent rise in commission revenues to P300.6 million owing to the rapid growth of its customer base and trading activities given a resurgent stock market.

The growth in commission revenues, however,  was slower mainly because of the smaller share of local investors to total transactions in the PSE.

Nevertheless, COL’s total client base continued to grow, reaching over 42,000 as of end September from 27,306 as of end 2011. This also resulted in the expansion of COL’s asset base as client equity nearly doubled to P31.7 billion from P16.4 billion last year.

The Philippines already made up 91 percent of COL’s consolidated revenues, up from 82 percent for the whole of 2011.

COL also maintained its leadership position in the Philippine Stock Exchange with its market share (in terms of volume of transactions) rising to 23 percent from 21 percent in 2011.

In value terms, COL remained its rank as the seventh largest stockbroker, handling P111.6 billion worth of transactions.

It ended the nine-month period with consolidated assets of P3.7 billion or an increase of 6.3 percent from the previous year.