the Outsider - PSE Points to Ponder

  Ayala-backed Mynt and SM-controlled BDO Unibank, Inc. are two very different machines for turning Filipino credit demand into profit. One earns fat fintech spreads. The other survives on scale, funding discipline and clean loans. Call it the new arithmetic of Philippine finance. On one side is Mynt, the GCash parent in which Ayala Corporation increased exposure through AC Ventures Holding Corp., helping push Mynt’s valuation to about US$5 billion before the planned IPO. On the other hand is BDO Unibank, Inc., the country’s largest bank and the crown jewel of the SM financial ecosystem, with SM Investments Corporation disclosed as BDO’s largest common shareholder at 40.60% as of end-2025.  At first glance, the comparison looks unfair. BDO Unibank, Inc. is a universal bank with about ₱3.8 trillion in gross customer loans in the first quarter of 2026. Mynt’s CreditTech loan portfolio was only about ₱64.1 billion as of March 31, 2026. BDO is the aircraft carrier; Mynt’s lend...

  SM Investments’ latest quarter suggests that the Philippines’ most important conglomerate is not merely growing. It is becoming more distributable. In the Philippine corporate landscape, few institutions resemble a national economic barometer as closely as SM Investments Corporation . Its tills ring in supermarkets and department stores; its malls absorb weekend foot traffic and weekday errands; its banks finance households and firms; its portfolio companies touch logistics, energy, mining, and other arteries of commerce. When SM does well, it is often because the Filipino consumer, the landlord, the lender, and the capital allocator are all, to varying degrees, doing well too. The company’s first-quarter results for 2026 were not spectacular in the way a technology stock’s numbers might be spectacular. There was no sudden doubling of sales, no breathless narrative of disruption. Instead, SM produced something more characteristic of a mature conglomerate with formidable market po...

  SM Prime Holdings Inc. entered 2025 with the kind of problem many property companies would envy: revenue barely moved, but profit still climbed to a record. The Sy family-led developer posted ₱48.85 billion in net income attributable to the parent , up 7% from a year earlier, even as consolidated revenue rose only to ₱141.11 billion from ₱140.39 billion — a gain of about 1% . The result was less a story of explosive expansion than of a company squeezing more earnings out of a vast real-estate platform anchored by malls, rentals, hotels and convention centers. The headline was reassuring: SM Prime is still making more money. The subtext was more complicated: its most cyclical business, residential development, is flashing caution. Recurring Income Does the Heavy Lifting SM Prime’s recurring-income engine remained the center of gravity. Rental income rose 6% to ₱83.57 billion , with malls accounting for most of that stream. The company’s mall segment generated about ₱85.1 billio...