BPI maintains lead: Consing, 4 others get 23% pay hike

The Bank of the Philippine Islands once again showed who is the big kahuna among the industry’s Big 3 when it comes to executive compensation.

Despite being the third largest, the country’s oldest bank is awarding president Cezar Consing and the senior management team a generous 23 percent pay increase this year.

In peso terms, Consing, Ramon Jocson, Cezar Consing Antonio Paner, Simon Paterno, and Juan Carlos Syquia will have over P334 million in their pay envelopes altogether.

Their 2019 compensation means that the Consing team will have seen their combined compensation rise by a whopping 44 percent in just two years. BPI reported a three percent increase in net income last year to P23.08 billion, in contrast to Metrobank’s P22 billion and industry leader BDO’s P32.7 billion.

Even with the nearly P9 billion profit lead over BPI, BDO president Nestor Tan and his senior management team will receive this year about P196 million, nearly P138 million less than what Consing and company will be spreading around.

Ayalas’ poorer in-laws

After briefly overtaking Ayala Corp. in market capitalization in 2012, Aboitiz Equity Ventures has since lagged behind, despite uprooting itself from Cebu and the Aboitiz clan relocating to Makati and forging a marital partnership with the Zobels.

Even in terms of executive compensation, the Aboitizes have not shaken off their provincial metrics in order to keep up with the Joneses of imperial Manila.

According to regulatory disclosures, AEV will be paying president and chief executive Erramon Aboitiz and his management team of Xavier Jose Aboitiz, Robert McGregor, Luis Miguel, and Susan Valdez about P200 million this year.

In contrast, Ayala Corp. will Erramon Aboitiz be rewarding chairman Jaime Augusto Zobel de Ayala, president Fernando Zobel de Ayala, chief legal officer Solomon Hermosura, chief finance officer Jose Teodoro Limcaoco, and chief human resources officer John Philip Orbeta P590 million in combined compensation.

Then again, Ayala cranked out P31.8 billion in net income last year, compared to AEV’s P22.2 billion.

And AEV’s market cap of P331 billion as of Wednesday looked like it was a poorer cousin to Ayala’s P588 billion.

Mall lease rates still going down

Ayala Land has the numbers to show that Metro Manila and even the key cities are getting over-malled.

According to regulatory disclosures, the average monthly lease rates in Ayala malls in 2018 was P1,073 a square meter, representing a steady yearly reduction from P1,155/sqm in 2015 despite inflation and the hot real estate market.

Not surprisingly, the average occupancy rate had also gone down, to 89 percent from an average of 92 percent the year before.

Even the “stable” malls were under increasing strain, Ayala Land president Bernard Vincent Dy reported, with vacancy rates rising to five percent from three percent in 2017.

Meanwhile, office lease rates remained buoyant, thanks mainly to call centers, with Ayala charging an average monthly lease of P755/sqm in 2018 from P698/sqm in 2015.

Even occupancy rates for offices showed similar buoyancy, with monthly occupancy rates at 91 percent in 2018 from 84 percent in 2015.

Two teenage boys of Coca-Cola Philippines CFO Rakesh Patel were forced off a Korean Air flight in Seoul and put on a return flight to Atlanta because one of the boys suffer from a severe peanut allergy.

The enraged Patels have filed a complaint and demanded a refund, which in the scheme of things is really peanut money, but Korean Air, beyond offering an apology, so far only said it was still “examining the processes surrounding this incident.”

E-mail: moneygoround.manila@yahoo.com