Run – and take your wallet with you

Among the third generation Lopez cousins, the running joke is to hide when ABS-CBN Foundation, Inc. founder Gina Lopez enters the room.

Ms. Lopez is known to cajole and, if necessary, twist the arms of her cousins to empty their wallets for worthy causes.

With so many cousins – the generation of her father, the late Eugenio Lopez Jr., tended to have big families (read: about eight children) – that’s a lot of money from the family alone.

* * *

Did you know 1: Philippine desiccated coconut is the secret behind those Ferrero chocolates and Philippine coconut coir is used by European luxury cars as the filling of choice for their car seats.

* * *

Did you know 2: It costs $125 to ship a reefer van of goods from the Philippines to China and almost $1,000 to ship that same van from Mindanao to Manila.

* * *

There’s talk that an artificial shortage of low-priced cigarettes (read: those that cost P1 or less a stick) is looming.

You see, the cigarette companies and importers of brands whose excise taxes have been recently increased by Internal Revenue Commissioner Guillermo Parayno Jr. are still hoping that Congress will tell off Willy Parayno and exercise its sole right to legislate new taxes.

At stake here is the huge market of smokers from the C-D-E income brackets.

Because of the higher cost of getting a nicotine fix, the consumer is expected to either reduce his/her daily purchase or upgrade to the mid-price brands which are dominated by Lucio Tan’s Fortune Tobacco Corp.

* * *

Bank notes 1: The industry fast track seems to have temporarily shifted from treasury and investment banking and into that department/division that is trying to liquefy all those non-performing assets.

Keep a close eye on those chief credit officers.

* * *

Bank notes 2: Philippine National Bank president Lorenzo Tan continues to shrink the working space of head office even as he leases out more space to largely multinational companies and multilateral agencies.

And now, there are plans to open the banking hall – that’s the previous head office branch with close to 20 teller counters that has one of the best views of the Manila Bay sunset in town – for conventions and even weddings.

* * *

Bank notes 3: Trade and Investment Development Corp. of the Philippines is hosting a regional conference next month on export-import banking at the Asian Development Bank.

Of course, Tidcorp president Joel Valdes is inviting all those eximbank presidents that he has traveled the world to link up with.

As the country’s eximbank, Tidcorp not only provides insurance to the country’s exporters (a good product in these times of mergers and acquisitions when an export order made by one company may not be honored by the merged company) but also direct loans.