COL Financial sees stronger revenue growth

MANILA, Philippines - Leading online stockbroker COL Financial Group Inc. expects better growth in revenues this year, driven by robust activity in the local equities market.

COL Financial president and CEO Conrado F. Bate said “given what we saw during the first quarter, it looks very promising… maybe a 20-percent increase in revenues.”

“It’s more of the local business, obviously. It is more of commission driven,” Bate told reporters after the company’s annual stockholders meeting.

Last year, the company’s consolidated revenues were flat at P651 million as the strong performance in its Philippine operations was dragged by the slowdown in its Hong Kong business.

But Bate expects the activity of local investors to pick up further this year.

“I think the locals are no longer skeptical towards the market [and the] the economic environment is very conducive,” he said.

In contrast, the Hong Kong operations is becoming a less significant part of COL Financial’s business, Bate said.

As of end-2012, COL Financial had a total customer base of 46,500, up 66 percent from 28,000 in 2011.

Given greater awareness and interest of local investors, COL Financial expects its customer base to grow another 25 percent this year, Bate said.

The online brokerage firm conducts five seminars a week for those interested to learn about the stock market.

“The market will continue to perform better than any other investment class,” Bate said.

“The returns that you see will not be equal to what you saw last year, but still given the kind of options that you have, people would prefer to be in the stock market,” he added.

The benchmark Philippine Stock Exchange index, which recorded 38 all-time highs on its way to growing by 33 percent and closing at 5,812.83 last year, was the second best performing benchmark index in Asia, next only to the 36.3 percent climb of Thailand’s SET index.

The local stock market is benefiting from strong macroeconomic fundamentals, higher corporate earnings, increased consumer spending and fund inflows from abroad.