THE number of German investors anticipating a significant decline in sales due to the pandemic has doubled since April, a survey conducted by the German Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry (GPCCI) said.
The number of companies expecting sales to drop by more than half doubled to 26% since April, while 30% of businesses anticipate sales to slide between a quarter to half.
Companies that expected no change in sales at all slipped to two percent by June from 18% in April.
The chamber on Tuesday released the result of its new survey conducted between June 5 to 12, collecting 87 responses. This updates an initial survey held in late March and early April.
Most German investors seek the reduction of red tape and an economic stimulus package as necessary for their business as they address the impact of the pandemic.
The survey found that 71% of the companies want government to reduce administrative burdens such as customs, permissions and licenses, while 59% want economic stimulus packages, and 53% are seeking corporate income tax reduction.
“Companies quickly need huge support to tackle these trying times and to emerge more competitive on the international level afterwards,” GPCCI Executive Director Martin Henkelmann said.
Among disruptions caused by the pandemic, 84% said travel restrictions had the biggest effect on their operations. Companies also said they had postponed investment projects (55%), experienced supply chain problems (54%), and cancelled participation in trade fairs and events (54%).
While 39% of respondents said the easing of the lockdown in both the Philippines and Germany was “very helpful,” 47% said that it was “moderately helpful.”
A majority of the respondents are seeing a long supply chain recovery period, with 47% saying that supply chain operations will recover by the end of the year and 30% saying that they expect recovery by June 2021. A quarter believe that operations will recover by September. — J.P. Ibañez
ROXAS and Company, Inc. (RCI) is looking at raising funds through an equity placement of up to P800 million with global investment group LDA Capital Ltd.
In a stock exchange disclosure Tuesday, RCI said its board of directors allowed the corporation to enter into a put option agreement for an equity placement commitment with LDA Capital.
A put option is an agreement that allows a company to sell an underlying security at a pre-determined price.
“This equity placement commitment is part of RCI’s fund-raising activities aimed at strengthening its subsidiaries, with the proceeds to be utilized for additional working capital and to support the reduction of bank debts to manageable levels,” RCI said.
Under the terms, LDA Capital Ltd. will be the investor and LDA Capital LCC will be the arranger of the transaction. RCI will control the timing and maximum amount of the put option, which should be within 36 months from the signing of the deal.
RCI’s board of directors also approved granting a call option to the investor, which essentially allows LDA Capital to buy up to 99 million common shares in RCI at P2.38 each.
The plan of the company is to sign the put option agreement today, June 17.
RCI is a Philippine firm with interests in real estate, sugar and ethanol manufacturing. Some of its subsidiaries are Roxaco Land Corp. and Roxas Holdings, Inc.
LDA Capital, on the other hand, is an alternative investment group engaged in global public equities, private equity and credit. On its website, it said some companies in its portfolio are Ansen Corp., GetSwift, L’Officiel USA and Smart Energy Sweden Group AB.
Shares in RCI at the stock exchange closed P1.90 each on Tuesday, up 10 centavos or 5.56% from the previous day. — Denise A. Valdez
PILIPINAS Shell Petroleum Corp. is anticipating the impact of the months-long quarantine in the country to be reflected in its second-quarter earnings.
“The crisis is far from over as the effects of the ECQ (enhanced community quarantine) is probably more felt in the second quarter,” Pilipinas Shell President and Chief Executive Officer Cesar G. Romero said in the company’s annual shareholders’ meeting on Tuesday.
In the first quarter, the Philippine-listed oil unit of Royal Dutch Shell reported a “disappointing” loss of P5.5 billion, a reversal of its P2.33-billion income recorded in the same quarter in 2019.
The loss came with the collapse of global oil prices, along with the drop in fuel demand.
“However, Pilipinas Shell has a strong balance sheet, sufficient retained earnings and reasonable gearing of 37%,” Mr. Romero said.
“We are in a robust position not only to deal with market volatility, but also to support the country’s growth as it enters the new normal,” Min Yih Tan said, delivering his first address as the company’s board chairman.
The company has doubled its operating expense savings target this year to P1 billion from P500 million in March, coming from various cash preservation initiatives.
It has also cut its capital expenditure this year by 25% to over P1 billion, while its employees will no longer receive discretionary performance-related bonuses.
Moreover, it deferred the company’s cash dividend declaration to the second quarter in its next board meeting.
Although the oil retailer is uncertain when the country would recover from the ongoing crisis, it will show “leadership and take early and decisive action to stay resilient as a company,” Mr. Romero said. — Adam J. Ang
SUNTRUST Home Developers, Inc. signed an agreement to pay $46 million (about P2.31 billion) to its partner for its hotel casino project in Parañaque City by month’s end.
The company told the exchange Tuesday it had entered into its fourth supplemental agreement with Westside City Resorts World, Inc., its co-developer for the hotel casino, for the increased refundable deposit.
The deposit comes on top of the $20 million (about P1 billion) that Suntrust agreed to initially deposit to Westside in January. The added fund is payable on or before June 30.
Suntrust said the budget will form part of its payment for the hotel casino’s project site. If the co-development is not pushed through by Sept. 30, the deposit will be refunded by Westside to Suntrust.
Aside from the added deposit, the supplemental agreement also extended the period for Suntrust to raise not less than $300 million (about P15.03 billion) for the construction and development of the hotel casino.
The fundraising period was supposed to end on July 31, but is now extended until Sept. 30.
Suntrust and Westside are co-developing a hotel casino at the Manila Bayshore Integrated City as part of Megaworld Corp.’s Westside City. It is envisioned to have 400 hotel rooms, a casino establishment with 400 gaming tables and 1,200 slot machines, and a parking facility with 960 slots.
Suntrust is 51% owned by Fortune Noble Ltd., a wholly owned subsidiary of Hong Kong-based Suncity Group Holdings Ltd.
Shares in Suntrust at the stock exchange gained one centavo or 0.81% to P1.24 each on Tuesday. — Denise A. Valdez
The Fruit Hoarder (2020) by Katja Farin, 35 in. x 48 in. — WWW.KATJAFARIN.COM
A $5.5 million painting by Cecily Brown, a sold-out New York debut by emerging artist Katja Farin and many other artworks found buyers online during the shutdowns.
The $64 billion art market, the epitome of the globe-trotting jet set, has muscled through lockdowns better than anticipated. Now, as galleries from Hong Kong to Berlin reopen, the biggest challenges may lie ahead.
“This will be a difficult year for every range of a gallery — mid-sized, young and large,’’ said Thaddaeus Ropac, a top art dealer with spaces in Salzburg, Paris and London, where galleries were allowed to reopen on Monday.
Buyers demand discounts of as much as 30% on new works and 50% on the secondary market, according to art dealers. Temporary reprieve, including government rescue loans or rent reductions, will go away. And art fairs, one of the largest sources of revenue for galleries, aren’t coming back soon. The Art Basel show, where more than $3 billion worth of art is usually up for grabs, canceled its annual edition in Switzerland.
Some reopenings didn’t go smoothly. Galleries in Seoul had to close again after COVID-19 cases spiked again in South Korea last month. At least one Berlin gallery was shut down and fined after failing to comply with social-distancing rules.
“People are nervous and anxious,” said Heather Hubbs, executive director of the New Art Dealers Alliance, a New York-based industry group. “There are still so many unknowns.”
Summer months are traditionally slow. And while online sales were a lifeline during the lockdowns, they won’t be enough to prop up an industry that thrives on in-person encounters with art. More than 150 US galleries said they anticipated a 73% average drop in second-quarter revenue from 2019, according to a survey conducted April 15 through May 4.
The top names weren’t spared. Hauser & Wirth, one of the world’s biggest galleries, had to postpone the grand opening of its new flagship in Chelsea until the fall.
Larry Gagosian, the original mega dealer, managed to host a dinner at one of his Chelsea locations to celebrate the exhibition of a monumental Donald Judd sculpture — plywood stacks rising 12-feet-high and 80-feet-across — on the eve of the lockdown.
“It was like the Last Supper,” said Gagosian, who has 18 galleries worldwide. The public never got to see the piece.
As COVID-19 infections began to rise in New York, Emmanuel Di Donna rushed to install and photograph paintings by Maria Helena Vieira da Silva, an overlooked modernist Portuguese painter who hasn’t had a show in New York since 1971.
Planned for more than a year, the exhibition never opened at the Upper East Side gallery. But the elegant in-situ images became the backbone of an online viewing room, which drew 1,800 visitors.
“All the energy that used to go to the brick-and-mortar gallery went to the online space,” said David Zwirner, a top art dealer whose locations on three continents were all closed. “It felt like we were running a startup at times.”
His gallery created a digital sales platform for smaller and newer galleries, which totaled $1.2 million for participants in cities including New York, London and Los Angeles.
Art fairs also went virtual, with mixed results. Art Basel Hong Kong’s website crashed shortly after going live in mid-March. But by the time Frieze New York opened online in May, Hauser & Wirth found a buyer for a $2 million painting by George Condo, according to Marc Payot, the gallery’s president.
On the other end of the spectrum, Lubov gallery in New York sold out of the new paintings by 24-year-old Katja Farin, with prices ranging from $1,000 to $4,000. The success was notable because the Los Angeles-based artist had lost her jobs as an art handler as galleries and museums cut freelance workers.
“What an amazing opportunity to be able to buy work that you love that also helps someone make ends meet,” said Jeremy Kost, an artist and collector who bought two paintings.
Small galleries such as Signs and Symbols in New York, which focuses on performance art, have been struggling. Owner Mitra Khorasheh said she is on the hook for $5,000 in monthly rent. Two applications for federal relief aid for small businesses were rejected. Most sales have come through initiatives at her new online shop. Soon after the shutdown, 200 postcard-size artworks sold for $35 each. “It was enough to pay for April rent,”’ she said.
Galleries that reopened in Asia and Europe offer a glimpse of what the future of art viewing will look like. In Hong Kong last month, about 150 people in masks showed up for a Gagosian exhibition of German artist Georg Baselitz’s signature upside-down figures.
In Paris, Zwirner and Ropac skipped opening receptions and installed Plexiglas shields around their galleries’ front desks. Zwirner also implemented daily employee temperature checks.
Berlin’s Koenig Galerie invited only 20 collectors when it reopened with sculptures by conceptual artist duo Elmgreen and Dragset. It’s been using 30-minute time tickets to control the flow of visitors, who are asked to wear masks and write down their names, phone numbers and the time of visit per government regulations, said owner Johann Koenig.
FeinArt Berlin is prepared to turn away visitors who refuse to provide personal information, according to director Maria Wirth. Several galleries won’t reopen after the shutdowns, she added, and at least one was closed and fined for having an unmasked person inside.
Local authorities inspected Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac in Salzburg, Austria, ahead of its reopening on June 6 with paintings by German artist Daniel Richter. They approved the plan to use different staircases to move between floors, but requested the closure of smaller rooms where social distancing couldn’t be achieved.
The event attracted 300 visitors and all paintings sold — the highest price was 220,000 euros ($250,000). Most buyers, including those in Asia and South America, had only seen the works digitally, Ropac said.
In New York, the art world’s epicenter, the timeline remains unclear to gallery owners.
High-end galleries Skartstedt and Van de Weghe decided to skip the city entirely for now and rent new spaces in the Hamptons, where many clients have fled.
But Magda Sawon, co-founder of Postmasters gallery in Tribeca, where a show Joseph Beuys and Turkish artist Serkan Ozkaya has been on hold since March, is ready to reopen as soon as she gets green light from the city and state.
“There are a lot people in New York who haven’t left and who deserve this gift of an exhibition,’’ Sawon said. — Bloomberg
SFA Semicon Philippines Corp. (SSP) has extended its contract with its South Korea-based parent company to allow it to continue operating its manufacturing plant in Pampanga.
In a disclosure to the stock exchange Tuesday, SSP said its board of directors had approved the renewal of its business transaction agreement with SFA Semicon Co., Ltd. (SSK). The contract allows SSP to continue the assembly and test of semiconductor memory products in its manufacturing plant in Clark Freeport Zone, it said.
The renewed agreement will take effect on July 1 and will expire on June 30, 2021. SSP’s board of directors approved an agreement that may be automatically renewed for a year under the same terms and conditions, unless either of the parties terminates the deal.
When it renewed the same contract last year, SSP required SSK to supply the company with critical production materials and consign state-of-the-art semiconductor manufacturing and testing equipment.
SSP manufactures dynamic random-access memory (DRAM) modules, memory component chips, memory solutions and secure digital (SD) flash cards for Samsung Electronics of South Korea.
The company said it booked a net income of $1.81 million in the first quarter of 2020, a reversal of the $345,210 net loss it recorded the same period last year. Its gross revenues grew 31% to $78.48 million due to a 48% increase in production volumes.
Shares in SSP at the stock exchange increased 15 centavos or 11.63% to P1.44 each on Tuesday. — D. A. Valdez
SAN MIGUEL Corp. (SMC) will distribute some 5,000 liters of excess pasteurized carabao milk to around 5,000 beneficiaries in six cities and provinces in Luzon, as part of the company’s efforts to help dairy farmers recover their financial losses.
In a statement on Tuesday, SMC President and Chief Operating Officer Ramon S. Ang said that together with the Philippine Carabao Center, the company will buy excess milk from farmers of the Nueva Ecija Federation of Dairy Carabao Cooperative.
After the purchase, they will form a joint feeding program that will distribute the milk to vulnerable children, elderly, and frontliners in Pampanga, Bulacan, Navotas, Manila, Malabon, Cavite, Quezon City, San Juan, and Mandaluyong.
“With this initiative, which the Department of Agriculture helped bring about, we are targeting to provide up to 1,000 liters of carabao milk per area. We will donate this specifically for the benefit of children and the elderly in poor communities,” Mr. Ang said.
Meanwhile, SMC has brought the technical expertise of its packaging arm, San Miguel Yamamura Packaging Corp., to the milk distribution project.
SMC said the limited farmer access to markets during the two-month quarantine period resulted in product spoilage.
In response to the spoilage problem, the packaging unit will provide research and development assistance to the Philippine Carabao Center on developing ways to extend the shelf-life of carabao milk.
“Ideally, we would like to see them be able to extend their products’ shelf life to at least three to six months,” Mr. Ang said, adding that doing so would eliminate the center’s spoilage and allow tie-ups to boost the industry.
Mr. Ang said that a possible beneficiary of the packaging research is a partnership with the Department of Education on a milk feeding program for public school children.
“With extended shelf life, the milk can also be transported and distributed throughout the country, giving carabao farmers a wider market, and even higher output and livelihood,” Mr. Ang said. — R. M. D. Ochave
THE GOVERNMENT made a full award of the 35-day Treasury bills (T-bills) it offered on Tuesday on strong demand as rates settled close to the headline inflation print.
The Bureau of the Treasury (BTr) raised P15 billion via 35-day T-bills as planned on Tuesday out of total bids worth P22.815 billion. Despite the oversubscription, the demand for the 35-day papers on Tuesday was lower compared to P34.4 billion in tenders seen the previous week.
The papers fetched an average rate of 2.102%, up 3.6 basis points (bps) from the 2.065% seen in the June 2 auction.
National Treasurer Rosalia V. de Leon said after the auction that investors preferred yields close to the inflation rate.
“Notice average is 2.1%, (indicating that) banks want (rates) to be within inflation,” Ms. De Leon told reporters via Viber.
Headline inflation eased to 2.1% in May from 2.2% in April and 3.2% in the same month a year ago, hitting a six-month low as prices of food and transportation costs declined.
This brought the year-to-date average to 2.5%, still within the central bank’s 2-4% target for this year.
Meanwhile, a bond trader said demand for the 35-day T-bills on Tuesday was smaller than the previous auction as investors searched for higher yields, particularly after the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) reopened its 14-day term deposit facility (TDF) and its P200-billion offerings under the reverse repurchase (RRP) facility.
“The tenders are smaller by about P12 billion compared to June 2. It can be attributed to market’s preference for higher yield especially now that BSP has reopened the 14-day TDF and increased its RRP volume to P200 billion,” the trader said via Viber yesterday.
The central bank temporarily halted its TDF auctions during the Luzon lockdown around mid-March and resumed offering just the seven-day deposits in April. Last week, it offered the 14-day tenor again after three months. Meanwhile, auctions for the one-month tenor remain suspended.
The trader added that the market is also waiting to see if the Treasury will conduct another jumbo bond sale anytime soon.
Ms. De Leon has said they are gauging demand for a jumbo issue or a retail Treasury bond (RTB) sale, saying they will remain “watchful of developments and risk return tolerance of investors.”
The last time the BTr offered RTBs was in February when it raised a record P310.8 billion from its sale of the three-year papers.
The government plans to borrow P170 billion from the local market in June: P110 billion via weekly T-bill auctions and the remaining P60 billion in Treasury bonds to be offered fortnightly.
The state borrows to fund its budget deficit which is now seen to hit 8.1% of gross domestic product. — B.M. Laforga
FUGITIVE art dealer Inigo Philbrick, who eluded authorities for months before turning up in the South Pacific, will be transported 8,400 miles to New York, where he faces charges that he defrauded collectors of more than $20 million in a Ponzi-like scheme.
Philbrick, who had galleries in London and Miami specializing in post-war and contemporary art, was arrested Thursday last week in the island nation of Vanuatu and turned over to US authorities. He was presented in court in Guam, a US territory, where he waived a hearing to determine his identity and was ordered into the custody of the US Marshals Service for transport to New York.
According to charges announced Friday by US Attorney Geoffrey Berman in Manhattan, Philbrick, 33, was “a serial swindler” who ripped off art collectors, investors and lenders by selling the same works multiple times to different parties between 2016 and 2019. He also sometimes used the works as collateral on loans without disclosing that others had ownership interests in them.
Philbrick disappeared in the wake of a slew of lawsuits filed in London, New York, and Miami, including by the billionaire Reuben brothers. Companies in Asia, Europe, and the US all have claims on various artworks handled by Philbrick. The case has roped in major auction houses and an art-finance firm linked to billionaire George Soros.
Among the artworks contested by investors is a $12.5 million painting by Jean-Michel Basquiat, a Yayoi Kusama installation sold to the Saudi royal family, a 2010 untitled painting by Christopher Wool, and an untitled 2012 portrait of the artist Pablo Picasso by Rudolf Stingel.
The lawyer who represented Philbrick in his court appearance in Guam didn’t immediately return messages seeking comment. — Bloomberg
BDO UNIBANK, Inc. is setting its sights on opportunities for growth in the country’s unbanked population despite the challenging outlook for 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic.
“We’re still focused on financial inclusion, we still believe that the 70% of the population that is unbanked is still a big potential. Our strategy remains the same although the means to achieve it may actually be adjusted,” BDO President and Chief Executive Officer Nestor V. Tan said in the bank’s virtual annual stockholders’ meeting held Tuesday.
Mr. Tan said he is confident BDO will be able to weather the crisis and assured shareholders that this will not impair their capital, adding that the bank’s capital adequacy ratio is expected to stay stable.
He also said the higher loan loss provisions it set aside is only anticipatory as the lender is not yet experiencing losses.
With digital transactions gaining traction amid the crisis, Mr. Tan said the bank may likely go through some adjustments in its branch and digital services. However, he noted that branch banking still has a role to play, especially in rural areas.
“Gradually, as digital picks up, we will probably see a slowdown in our branch expansion. But at the moment, as we move into the country side, it’s probably premature to say that branches will cease to exist,” he said, noting that branch lite banking is more likely to be a trend in dense, urban Manila areas.
Mr. Tan also noted threats from the rise of e-wallets e-payments, adding that the bank has already invested to boost its digital capacities.
“A lot of them [digital improvements] were supposed to come up this year but unfortunately, we got hit by the quarantine. I think you will see some of them coming towards the latter part of this year,” Mr. Tan said.
He said among these digital initiatives are boosting the bank’s QR code capabilities and the upgrade of its digital banking and information technology platform, as well as improved cybersecurity.
Mr. Tan said 80% of their branches are open during the quarantine period while their head office is manned by a skeletal crew. He added that they have also employed their business continuity model that had dual site processing capabilities in case a virus spread occurs.
Earlier this month, BDO increased its loan provisions to P22.1 billion in anticipation of the worsening impact of the pandemic.
The Sy-led lender’s net income declined by 10.2% to P8.8 billion in the first quarter from P9.8 billion a year ago as its investment portfolio was affected by weak markets.
BDO shares closed at P102.40 apiece on Tuesday, up by P3.40 or by 3.43%. — L.W.T. Noble
ABOITIZ-LED Pilmico Foods Corp. (Pilmico) has launched an online shop that addresses the changing needs of customers as a result of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic.
In a statement on Tuesday, Pilmico said customers can now access its products such as meats and eggs through its website called “The Good Meat.”
The new online shop offers door-to-door delivery for residents within Metro Manila and gives customers the convenience of shopping basic commodities, while also observing physical distancing.
“As businesses shifted to work-from-home setups, many resorted to purchasing products and services online. With people being more cautious about going out, especially with several forms of community quarantines in effect, door-to-door deliveries became part of the new normal to satisfy the needs of Filipino consumers,” Pilmico said.
Pilmico Vice-President for Farm Sales and Meat Business Hendel P. Cabral said the company is more than just a meat supplier, as it constantly searches for relevant solutions that bring good products to the tables of customers.
“We have easily transitioned our business model to adapt to the new normal scenario. Guided by our core value of innovation, being abreast of technology gave us the leverage to bring our top quality products in the convenience and safety of our customers’ households,” Mr. Cabral said.
Meanwhile, Pilmico said it now also offers its premium dog food brand Maxime and gamefowl feeds brand Salto to e-commerce platforms such as Lazada and Shopee. The said products are also available for door-to-door delivery.
TO keep track of intense emotion, events, and memories, some people would keep a journal or diary. For a painter, they keep a sketchbook.
Painter and art educator Jackie Hontiveros Lozano records personal experiences in her sketchbook. She then proceeds with color studies, before painting on a canvas.
“I felt the need to paint them on large canvases (up to 5 x 4 feet) because the emotions themselves are overwhelming for me, and I want to experience the vision on a large scale to reflect that,” Ms. Lozano wrote in an e-mail to BusinessWorld.
Ms. Lozano’s Awakening series features nine oil landscapes of vivid emotion featuring fragments of faces, forms, and everyday scenes. The abstracts which were originally scheduled for a showcase in April, are now on view at her website.
Ms. Lozano started working on the paintings in 2018 while juggling duties teaching in UP College of Fine Arts and doing portrait commissions.
THE ARTWORKS
Unlike commissioned portraits, Ms. Lozano considers these paintings as personal work as introspection is involved in her creative process.
“I paint it for myself. It’s like a diary where I pour out all my thoughts and emotions,” she wrote, differentiating them from a portrait where the likeness and personality of the subject are revealed through colors and strokes.
The titles of each Awakening piece includes a time as a reminder of a distinct emotion in her life such as fear of losing someone (Keep 21:00), feeling confident (Woman 07:00), excitement (Wonder 02:20), and anxiety (Lucky Dragon 12:00).
Lucky Dragon 12:00 depicts a woman and her dragon in the middle of a rough sea. The dragon is her Chinese zodiac sign.
“Every start of the year, my friends and I look through our Chinese horoscopes to know what’s in [store] for us for the coming year. My horoscope is one of the luckiest among all the animals, no matter what year it is. Sometimes when I feel like I’m having the worst times, I forget to realize how good I still have it,” she wrote, noting the detail of the woman’s covered eyes in her painting.
“I painted this to remind me that whatever I go through, even if I feel like my world is ending, it might not be all that bad,” she added.
Woman 07:00 – the final painting Ms. Lozano worked on for the series — shows a woman seated on grass, surrounded by plants.
“I show a woman sitting confidently, spreading her body open and taking up space. Looking directly at the audience, acknowledging the attention,” she explained. “I want to allow myself to take up space. Be myself, not someone who makes sure everyone else is comfortable.”
Ms. Lozano earned a degree in Visual Communication from UP Diliman College of Fine Arts. She worked in advertising, design, and teaching before painting full time in 2013. She returned to teaching at the UP College of Fine Arts in 2019. She continues to receive numerous commissions for portraits done in her “Anonymous style,” a technique that involves lightness and depth through quickly layered palette knife strokes.
“Despite being in a global crisis with COVID-19, this awakening story is about my present,” she wrote. “Since I’m continuously changing, I should push through with it and put this out to the world now as part of my process of moving on.”
The exhibit will be accessible on the website permanently. Ms. Lozano plans to hold a physical exhibit of the paintings once restrictions on gatherings are eased.
