Foreign fund accumulates 10.7% stake in BPI

UK-based Standard Life Aberdeen Group has acquired a significant stake in Ayala-led Bank of the Philippine Islands (BPI) over the past few months.

In a report to the Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE), Standard Life Aberdeen said it owns 421.94 million shares of BPI equivalent to a 10.74 percent stake in the listed bank.

Based on Friday’s closing price of P103.50 per share, the group’s 421.94 million shares in BPI were valued at more than P43 billion.

Standard Life Aberdeen is Europe’s second biggest fund manager. It was formed as a result of the merger between Standard Life Plc and Aberdeen Asset Management last Aug. 14.

The group’s investment business, Aberdeen Standard Investments, manages $758 billion while the Group’s pensions and savings business, Standard Life, has around 4.5 million customers and is based primarily in the UK, with operations in Ireland and Germany.

The unified entity has offices in 50 cities around the world, servicing clients in 80 countries. It has a market cap of over $14.3 billion.

Other major shareholders of BPI include conglomerate Ayala Corp. with 21.79 percent, Liontide Holdings Inc. with 20.1 percent, AC International Finance Ltd. with 8.68 percent, Roman Catholic Archbishop of Manila with 8.32 percent, Michigan Holdings Inc. with 2.1 percent, and GIC Private Investment Ltd. of Singapore with 1.2 percent.

Lower securities trading gains as well as the absence of one-off income pulled down the profit of BPI by 7.7 percent to P11.7 billion in the first half from P12.7 billion in the same period last year.

The assets of the Ayala-led bank increased 8.3 percent to P1.7 trillion in the first half from P1.58 trillion in the same period last year while its capital base went up 7.9 percent to P173.5 billion, translating in a capital adequacy ratio of 13.7 percent and a common equity tier 1 ratio of 12.8 percent.