BPI AUMs balloon to P450 billion end-November

MANILA, Philippines - The Bank of the Philippine Islands (BPI) is exhibiting an optimistic outlook for 2010, both in terms of the country’s economic growth and its trust operations.

BPI senior vice president and Asset Management and Trust Group head Ma. Theresa Marcial-Javier said that they expect the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) to grow by 1.5 percent this year, and between 3.5 to 4.5 percent in 2010.

Already assets under management (AUM) reached P450 billion at the end of November this year. That is already over a hundred times the P290 billion worth of assets it managed in 2008.

“That represents a market share of 25 percent of total AUMs of the trust departments of the commercial banks,” Javier pointed out.

Of the total AUMs managed by BPI, roughly P400 billion are invested in various types of trust products. The remaining P50 billion are invested in various types of mutual funds under the ALFM series.

Total industry assets so far stood at P1.7 trillion, or 30 percent higher than the P1.3 trillion recorded for the whole of 2008.

“That is the biggest asset growth recorded in just 11 months,” the BPI executive added.

Among the factors that contributed to the eye-popping growth is the migration of funds from overseas either from domestic and foreign fund managers that earlier gambled on the foreign market.

Then there is the tremendous growth of the special deposit accounts (SDA) said to number over P800 billion, as well as the outstanding performance of the country’s equity and securities market.

The Philippine equity market has expanded by a whopping 64 percent, keeping in pace with the region’s 68 percent.

The bond or fixed income market has reached its tipping point, and it is expected to register modest gains in 2010.

Javier said that a little over 50 percent of BPI’s trust investors are institutional and the rest are individuals.

While BPI will continue to service its institutional clients, it would like to expand its individual clientele with an emphasis on moving from the short-term savings instruments like the SDA, to the longer-term product such as trust or mutual funds.

“We would like to expand our high networth clientele, and encourage them to go for medium- to long-term investments,” the BPI senior vice president said in a press briefing yesterday.

The youthful Javier likewise believes that the money transfers or remittances from overseas Filipinos for their beneficiaries in the Philippines will expand by five percent this year.

“Next year, we forecast that it could expand further from a low of five percent to high single digits as the global economy further improves,” she added.