UCPB still finalizing its recapitalization program

MANILA, Philippines - United Coconut Planters Bank (UCPB) said  yesterday it has yet to finalize its recapitalization even as a number of banks have expressed interest in its bidding.

“The bank would like to reiterate that it is still in the process of finalizing the terms and conditions for its recapitalization,” UCPB senior vice president and head of marketing group Norman Martin Reyes said in a statement.

“While the bank has already received numerous expressions of interest as well as inquiries on the terms for the recapitalization from both local and foreign entities, it has not entered into any detailed discussion with nor granted access to its records to anyone,” he said.

For the meantime, Reyes said interested parties can assess UCPB’s performance through publicly available records.

“UCPB assures that the procedure of identifying and determining the number of investors who would be invited will be done in an open and transparent manner,” he said.

The UCPB official said the recapitalization scheme would be announced in due time. UCPB had earlier announced its plan to tap partners or take in new investors to help in its recapitalization program.

Among the banks reportedly in initial talks with UCPB include BDO Unibank Inc., Eastwest Banking Corp., Union Bank of the Philippines and China Banking Corp.

“It (UCPB) has very good customer base, good deposit level,” EastWest president and CEO Antonio Moncupa Jr. said.

Moncupa said they are only waiting for the terms of reference (TOR) to be released by UCPB.

“We are always looking for opportunities, we expect that the competition to acquire  is very intense at this point, everybody realizes that as interest rate goes down and competition gets intense, spreads will continue to be very very challenging so the only way is that there are two things that you could cope, you have to scale up or expand your revenue base and second, you have to commit lesser mistakes,” Moncupa said.

UCPB is majority owned by the government and coconut farmers. About P14 billion of the coconut levy fund (CLF) is placed in an escrow at UCPB.

To date, the CLF amounts to about P75 billion, of which P58 billion is lodged at the Bureau of Treasury, P14 billion at UCPB and some P3 billion  with the Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG).

The Philippine Deposit Insurance Corp. has infused a total of P12 billion in UCPB, which was placed under rehabilitation in 2009. The amount represented the value raised through capital notes, which are convertible to preferred shares should the bank fail to settle them in 10 years.

At present, the bank has about 188 branches and over 200 ATMs nationwide.

UCPB is also a key player in countryside development. Its UCPB-CIIF Finance and Development Corp. and UCPB-CIIF Foundation implement various credit programs and community-building activities in 62 of the country’s 64 coconut-producing provinces aimed at uplifting the quality of life of people living in these communities.