the Outsider - PSE Points to Ponder

  Mynt, the parent of GCash, now earns more than UnionBank, Security Bank, and RCBC—and nearly as much as PNB and Chinabank. There was a time when GCash was spoken of as a payments app, a convenient wrapper around mobile money. That description now feels quaint. In Globe Telecom’s first-quarter 2026 results, Mynt—the parent company of GCash—reported ₱5.6 billion in net income for the three months ended March 31, 2026, on ₱20.9 billion in revenues . Globe’s own equity share from Mynt reached ₱1.927 billion , reflecting its 34% stake after dilution from MUFG’s investment.  That puts Mynt in an unusual place in Philippine finance: not quite a bank, but earning like one. In the same quarter, UnionBank earned ₱3.8 billion , Security Bank earned ₱2.7 billion , and RCBC earned ₱2.7 billion . Mynt’s quarterly profit was therefore comfortably ahead of those of the listed lenders. Meanwhile, it came within range of PNB’s ₱6.37 billion and Chinabank’s ₱6.8 billion —institutions with l...

  iPeople Inc. delivered the kind of 2025 numbers most Philippine education companies would envy: revenue climbed 16.7% to about ₱6.22 billion, powered by higher enrollment, new programs and a broader push into digital learning. Yet for all the operational progress, the market’s next question is becoming harder to ignore: What comes after steady execution? The education holding company behind Mapúa University, National Teachers College and University of Nueva Caceres has spent the past few years proving that scale in Philippine private education can still produce growth. In 2025, the formula was straightforward but effective: more students, more programs and more ways to deliver instruction. iPeople said average enrollment reached 84,088 students, up 12.15% from a year earlier, while management tied revenue growth to higher enrollment, the earlier start of classes at some schools and the rollout of new business and health sciences offerings linked to Mapúa’s collaboration with Ariz...

  Using publicly disclosed 2025 dividend declarations and ownership stakes, Metrobank, BPI and BDO emerge as the biggest identifiable cash spigots to the parent holding companies of GT Capital, Ayala Corp. and SM Investments. When investors look at Philippine conglomerates, the eye usually goes first to malls, property launches, auto sales or telecom towers. But at the parent-company level, the more revealing question is simpler: which subsidiaries actually throw cash up to the holding company? On that test, the answer for the Ty, Zobel and Sy groups is strikingly similar. Their banks — Metrobank for GT Capital Holdings Inc., Bank of the Philippine Islands for Ayala Corp., and BDO Unibank for SM Investments Corp. — were the biggest identifiable dividend engines feeding the top of the house in 2025.  Start with GT Capital . The Ty family holding company’s ownership map ties it directly to Metrobank , and Metrobank’s own disclosures show that GT Capital owns 37.2% of the bank...

Two years after Bank of the Philippine Islands absorbed Robinsons Bank, the 2025 annual report shows a bank that is bigger, broader, and more lucrative — but also one carrying more credit risk, thinner buffers, and a more demanding balancing act. The deal that turned the Gokongwei group into a roughly 6% shareholder in Bank of the Philippine Islands was sold in 2022 as a way to expand BPI’s customer base, deposit franchise, and product reach, while opening the Ayala-led lender to a new corporate ecosystem spanning retail, property, food, and aviation. The merger formally took effect on January 1, 2024 , after regulatory approvals, with BPI as the surviving entity. Two annual cycles later, BPI’s 2025 Integrated Report and year-end earnings suggest that the broad strategic thesis has worked: the bank is larger, more visible, more digitally scaled, and paying bigger dividends. But the numbers also show the price of that expansion — higher bad-loan ratios, a much steeper provisioning bill...

  The simplest way to read two of the Philippines’ biggest conglomerates is not through malls, banks or telecom towers, but through the parent company balance sheet — the top of the house where dividend income arrives, debt sits, and shareholder payouts are decided. On that score, SM Investments Corp. and Ayala Corp. ended 2025 in sharply different places: SM looked like the steadier cash-harvesting holdco, while Ayala looked like the more obvious deleveraging story. Start with the parent-company balance sheet. Ayala’s standalone parent assets were ₱274.6 billion at end-2025, against liabilities of ₱96.2 billion and equity of ₱178.4 billion. SM Investments’ standalone parent assets were slightly smaller at ₱268.1 billion, but liabilities were lower at ₱82.0 billion, and equity was higher at ₱186.1 billion. That means Ayala was marginally bigger at the parent level by assets, but SM entered 2026 with the cleaner capital base — more equity and less liability drag. Both companies...

  By any measure, Ayala Corp.’s 2025 story was about more than headline profit. It was also about the mechanics of a holding company that still lives, first and foremost, on cash sent upstairs. For all the attention paid to Ayala Corp.’s record earnings in 2025, the more telling development may have happened one level above the operating businesses. At the parent company, dividend income climbed to ₱22.964 billion from ₱19.303 billion, a reminder that Ayala, as a holding company, ultimately depends on cash distributions from subsidiaries, associates, and joint ventures to fund debt service, shareholder payouts, and new investments. The rise suggests a sturdier parent-level cash engine at a time when management has been emphasizing portfolio discipline and balance-sheet resilience. Ayala’s 2025 Integrated Report said the group entered 2026 focused on “sharpening” the portfolio and reinforcing financial resilience, while also highlighting that 75% of parent debt is fixed-rate a...