Before we get to business, a quick question, you were pulled out of
retirement to lead a yalla. I mean, was it a surprise?
Worse, I mean, from the golf course, one on a Sunday to work seven o'clock the
next morning, I was absolutely surprised.
A banker by profession. How was it like leading a conglomerate?
Right now? Well, the skill sets are very similar,
right? A fight between banking and private
equity. The skill sets are actually quite useful
for leading a conglomerate. So it's been an easy adjustment.
So, Bong, what's the direction under your leadership?
At a gala? What's the strategy going forward?
I sleep. I want to take advantage of the growth
of the Philippine economy. This economy has been amazingly
resilient. You know, in this quarter we'll be back
to where we were pre covered. And that's on the strength of
consumption, which is back to pre Covid levels.
It's on the strength of government spending, which is an excess of pre
Covid levels. However, exports are are lower than
people with levels. Investments are lower than pre Covid
levels. Just think of what happens to this
economy if exports and investments get back to pre Covid levels.
That's the next boost to growth. And what we'd like to do is make it make
sure that Diyala is well positioned to take advantage of that boost to growth.
I think we have the portfolio that will do that.
So can you clarify on the opportunities you see under the current
administration? Where would you be investing in more?
Well, it's very, very clear that the current administration is very focused
on investments, which makes a lot of sense because we have a consumption led
economy and investments have always been a smaller than than than a smaller part.
So we have to focus on that. And when you look at our portfolio, it
is in those sectors which frankly command a lot more investments in the
banking sector, for example, where we continue to build in real estate, where
we'll continue to roll out a lot more estates and build our leasing business
in telcos where we'll continue to build the tech
side of globe and in energy, where we'll continue to roll out much more renewable
energy. So we will be adding investments into an
economy that sorely needs more investments and taking advantage of this
next ramp up in growth following hits recession.
Give us a sense of relief. You know, I've been looking through the
business as it stands, which you think the weakest parts and which are the
strongest parts of the corporation here. Well, our core businesses, which are all
pretty strong. Their number one or number two in their
sectors, BPI is probably the most digitalized big bank around.
You know, its growing market share. It's showing 12 percent loan growth.
It's growing its deposit market share. If you look at Globe, you know, Ernest
and his team, they've done a phenomenal job.
And right now, as the as the core business begins to look much more
mature, they're focusing on the whole tech side
of the business. Jim Cash, for example, and everything
else that is tech. And then look at renewable energy.
This is a company that didn't exist 12 years ago and now it's among the leaders
in the region. And not to mention a yellow land.
Right. Which is a traditional strength of ours.
So our core businesses are in great shape, frankly, and they're in great
shape. Now we've got smaller businesses that
continue to grow, be the health side is very important to us.
Covid showed us that the that the nation is under invested in health and there
will do a lot more. We'll continue to digitalized that
business. We have a super app that will produce
revenues, frankly, quite soon. And on the logistic side, Covid has also
told us that logistics is very important.
So we'll continue to invest there. Yes, exactly.
You did this and you mentioned your fintech big a bit.
Cash, you have plans to take that public off other parts of the or the
corporation that you wish to also likewise take to market here as well.
And if so, which ones? What gee, cash is a lot of value in
cash. The question that that the folks there
that are running it are asking themselves, this is when do we realize
that value? Because remember, cash for the longest
time was just in the payment space. And now it's into loans.
It's into insurance. And since there's so much more
throughput in cash. So there's a lot more
growth, potential energy cash. I think I think we have time.
I'll leave it to the management of that group to decide if and when.
We'll we'll take that public. Now, as for us, for the other companies,
you know, the conglomerates fairly large, the companies themselves have a
lot of units underneath each of them. There might be an opportunity to delay
or some of that and make those values more visible to the public.
But we'll take that one one step at a time.
Yet to it, and then that brings us to the smaller part of your business as
well. I know Hasson is gonna ask you about
iPods and the like as well, but which are the particular parts which perhaps
needing consolidation here, which are the ones that you may not even want to
consolidate but exit out of? For instance, water that you've already
done. Well, you know, if you if you look at
all on our TV, use their fairly large companies.
But in fragmented, relatively fragmented industry, it's right there over 40
bytes, for example. Now, you could you could argue that the
smaller companies could also use consult consolidation.
Those are very fragmented industries. Consolidation hopefully will come.
And then the question is, if you can consolidate these smaller industries,
will the values be large enough to move the needle for for our company?
I think there might be a couple of those industries where the values are large
enough. There might be some of those industries
where they aren't. And those will have to rationalize.
Bong, you talked about how you live it too honest and team to decide on G
cashes IPO. But would it make sense to IPO cash in
the next perhaps six to 12 months? You know, that's that's a company that
that that value is growing every single day.
You know, did they already dealing with over 70 million Filipinos?
They see this a lot more product throughput there.
That's it makes sense to realize value eventually, of course.
But, you know, I'm not going to second guess Ernest and his team on that.
They've done such a great job. This is an amazing company.
I know better than to say that they stick my nose in it.
BPI, of course, acquired Robinson's bank this year.
Just wondering about consolidation plans.
Are there other plans to acquire more assets in the next twelve months?
Well, the BP ISE already growing its market share organically.
You know, BP, I gross a the equivalent of a small bank every year or two.
All right. So let's significant lead the Robinsons
bank deal. This it is really aimed at creating a
partnership with the with the Go Who, a group, one of the most respected groups
in the country. And probably the third largest
conglomerate. And I think we're off to a great start.
Bong, very, very quickly, what's going to be the highlight of 2023 for you?
Twenty seconds, Max. We're we're we're building an ecosystem
in electric vehicles. We are going much more digital.
We are growing much more green. Those are the highlights.
It's basically digital, green and shared values.
When you look at digital and and green, it automatically translates to more
shared value because you can go to a much broader market.
You can create much more social value. That's got to be the highlight of our
year.