Aboitiz-led UnionBank of the Philippines (UBP) grew its first quarter net profit by 79 percent year-on-year to P4.7 billion on the back of higher interest earnings and hefty trading gains. This performance translated to a robust return on equity of 18.1 percent, the bank told the Philippine Stock Exchange on Friday. “Our strong financial performance…
When we think of titans of the startup sphere, we think Jobs, Gates, Musk, Zuckerberg—men who founded some of the largest tech companies in the world. The situation is not different in the Philippines, where some of the most successful startups were also founded by men. While this may have led to the perception…
The country’s oldest conglomerate Ayala Corp. has contributed a total of P13.1 billion so far in the intervention efforts against the COVID-19 pandemic, more than half of which were from its property crown jewel Ayala Land Inc. (ALI) “With the steady rollout of our ambitious national vaccination program, of which the Ayala group and especially…
Property giant SM Prime Holdings provided about P23 billion worth of rental concessions last year to help shopping mall tenants across the country stay afloat amid lockdown restrictions imposed by the government to curb the COVID-19 pandemic. “We are continuously assisting our business partners, most especially our mall tenants, who are badly affected by community…
Converge ICT Solutions Inc. is securing crucial internet capacity via an upcoming international submarine cable system that is being built by global technology giants. In a stock exchange filing on Wednesday, Converge announced plans to invest over in the project known as the Bifrost Cable System, a 15,000-kilometer undersea cable project from Singapore to the…
The Board of Investments (BOI) saw a 66-percent increase in investment commitments from January to March to P138 billion from P83 billion in the same period last year, a top official said in a recent online briefing with Chinese companies, as he encouraged firms that were already in the Philippines to expand and diversify their…
Taking over the helm of a multi-billion-peso company is challenging enough in the best of times, certainly even more so at the beginning of a raging pandemic that would cause an unprecedented public health and economic crises. Such a prospect would have daunted other candidates from immediately embracing their new role of chief executive…
The COVID-19 pandemic still has the Philippines and other parts of Southeast Asia firmly in its grip. But even then, enterprises in the region have begun preparing themselves for postcrisis growth. According to SAP’s regional study “Digital, resilient, and experience-driven: How enterprises in Southeast Asia can prepare for the new economy”, Southeast Asian firms are…
With the country still under some form of lockdown a year into the pandemic, people have had to find ways to celebrate or, at the very least, mark birthdays and milestones at home. By now, many are familiar with takeout, delivery and meal kits, but one company has gone beyond the expected and came up…
Given the restrictions and consequences imposed by the pandemic, it’s so easy to feel defeated. But Marvin Agustin’s successful food venture proves that with hard work and an ounce of hope, there’s no reason to be. Bored from being locked down at home, the actor-restaurateur took to baking, something he admitted to being initially intimidated…