the Outsider - PSE Points to Ponder

  EastWest’s planned ₱9 billion rights offering highlights a difficult trade-off for Philippine lenders: preserve dividends, finance loan growth, or prepare for a longer period of high rates and elevated credit losses. Philippine bank stocks have long appealed to income investors for a straightforward reason: They combine regular cash dividends with exposure to an economy that, over time, should require more mortgages, business loans, credit cards and wealth-management services. That proposition is becoming more complicated. East West Banking Corp.’s plan to raise as much as ₱9 billion through a stock-rights offering has put a new question before dividend investors. If inflation stays high, the peso remains under pressure, and the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas keeps monetary policy restrictive, will other banks eventually have to conserve earnings or raise fresh capital? EastWest’s move isn’t evidence of a systemwide capital shortage. Philippine banks entered 2026 with substantial b...

  Fresh equity gives the Lopez-led broadcaster room to negotiate. For BPI and UnionBank, the question is whether patience preserves value—or lets operating creditors move ahead in the economic queue. **MANILA—**In Philippine street slang, “Judith” is the visitor nobody wants to see: the due date. For ABS-CBN Corp., Judith is approaching twice. A Bank of the Philippine Islands facility has been extended to August 31, 2026 , while a Union Bank of the Philippines facility has been extended to September 30, 2026 , according to the broadcaster’s latest quarterly filing. Together, the two facilities were originally described as roughly ₱9.75 billion, although the ABS-CBN parent company carried a lower accounting balance of about ₱8.40 billion as of June 30 after previous payments and adjustments. This time, however, ABS-CBN isn’t greeting Judith empty-handed. The company has announced a plan to raise ₱6 billion in new equity . I&C Holdings Corp. is expected to provide ₱3.5 billi...

  Fresh equity can repair the broadcaster’s balance sheet, but creditor banks tied to the Ayala and Aboitiz groups will determine whether the money finances a recovery—or merely repays old obligations. **MANILA—**ABS-CBN Corp.’s proposed ₱6 billion capital infusion gives the debt-laden media company something it has lacked since losing its broadcast franchise in 2020: time. Whether it produces a turnaround is another question. The broadcaster said I&C Holdings Corp. would invest ₱3.5 billion, while three Lopez family investment vehicles—Crème Investment Corp., Mantes Corp. and Presta Holdings Co.—would contribute a combined ₱2.2 billion. Lopez Inc. would invest another ₱300 million. ABS-CBN’s board approved the transaction on August 13, a day after the subscription agreements were signed. The company said the proceeds would be used for general corporate purposes.  The transaction would inject permanent capital without adding interest expense. I&C, established by invest...

Q1 2026 underscored why BDO still dominates in scale, while BPI leads in efficiency and returns. In Philippine banking, size and finesse rarely travel in equal measure. BDO Unibank, the country’s largest lender, resembles a financial archipelago unto itself: vast, deposit-rich and deeply embedded in the cash flows of households, malls, merchants and corporations. Bank of the Philippine Islands, older and more patrician, looks less like a sprawl and more like a carefully tuned machine. The first quarter of 2026 offered a useful contrast. Both banks made more money than a year earlier. Both were bruised by bond-market losses. But the manner of their performance revealed two quite different banking models. BDO still won on scale; BPI won on efficiency.  BDO reported net profit of ₱20.2bn , up 2.1% year on year , while BPI earned ₱17.0bn , up about 1.8% . On the surface, the larger bank won. Yet profit is only the first sentence of the story. BDO generated pre-impairment operating...

  The bank still has the bigger margin. The wallet still owns the daily habit. BPI’s free-transfer gambit shows how Ayala’s two finance champions are starting to collide. Ayala’s financial empire now has two engines that look increasingly alike from a customer’s phone. One is BPI , the old bank: deposit-rich, heavily regulated, and still highly profitable. The other is Mynt , the company behind GCash : younger, faster, and built around the daily habit of payments, transfers, and app-based finance. In the first quarter of 2026, BPI was still clearly the larger profit machine, generating ₱50.9bn in revenue and ₱17.0bn in net income, while Mynt generated ₱20.9bn in revenue and ₱5.6bn in net income. The margin comparison matters. BPI converted about 33.4% of revenue into net income, while Mynt converted about 26.8% . That makes BPI not only larger than GCash’s parent but also more profitable in terms of net income margin.  Yet the strategic pressure is moving in the other dir...

  In the first quarter of 2026, Bank of the Philippine Islands looked, at first glance, like the sort of bank investors usually like: large, profitable, liquid, and dull in the best possible way. It earned ₱17.02bn in consolidated net income , or ₱16.92bn attributable to BPI shareholders , on ₱57.05bn of interest income . Put differently, BPI generated about ₱0.30 of net income for every ₱1.00 of interest income —a handsome conversion rate for a banking franchise operating in a still-high-rate environment.  Yet the quarter also carried a reminder that banks do not merely lend money; they warehouse duration, credit risk, and market risk. BPI’s reported profit was resilient, rising 1.7% year on year to ₱16.92bn attributable to equity holders , but its total comprehensive income collapsed to ₱2.86bn , from ₱18.34bn a year earlier. The culprit was not a sudden operating loss but a large other comprehensive loss of ₱14.16bn, driven by a ₱13.59bn net fair-value loss on F...

  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...