China Bank seeks extension of merger with Pampanga bank

MANILA, Philippines - China Banking Corp., a commercial bank arm of the Sy group, has asked for a six-month extension to complete the merger of its subsidiary China Bank Savings Bank (CBS) with Unity Bank, a Pampanga-based rural bank.

China Bank senior vice president for corporate planning division Alexander Escucha told reporters over the weekend that they have requested the Monetary Board of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) to extend the merger timeline for another six months to allow them more time to conduct the book audit on Unity Bank.

“We expect the merger to happen towards the end of this year,” he said. The merger between Unity and CBS was originally set to be completed this month.

At the same time, Escucha said the bank’s board is also considering the re-evaluation of this year’s income target in the light of the foreseen improvement in earnings for the year.

“We will be re-evaluating our full year (income) target in the light of better first quarter performance. The review may involve raising the target from flattish last year to higher income growth projection this year,” he said, however declining to give the actual projected figures.

China Bank’s net income hit P1.79 billion in the first quarter of 2013, up 63 percent from P1.1 billion same period last year.

The bank’s gross revenues increased by 24.7 percent driven by trading and securities gains — which expanded 80.7 percent year-on-year — and higher fee-based revenues.

Customer loan portfolio expanded 16.3 percent to P179.5 billion year-on-year with all market sectors showing significant growth.

Escucha said the bank is also on track with its expansion plan, opening 23 new branches in 2012, 15 of which is for the main bank and eight for CBS.

This year, the bank is targeting to open a total of 67 branches. Three CBS branches were opened in the first quarter, bringing the total branch count to 320 to date, including the new China Bank branch opened last April 26.  It aims to have combined branch network of 415 by 2014.

The bank is also implementing a new core banking system for roll-out by next year.