October 2006 FPCI: Steward of Verde Island “CONSERVATION is the foresighted For one, FPCI is bent on making ment in the US-based Conservation In- utilization, preservation and/or renewal Filipinos aware of the fact that the ternational (CI). The new entity’s stated of forests, waters, lands and minerals, country is smack at the epicenter of vision was to provide Lopez Group for the greatest good of the greatest marine biodiversity as proven by ma- companies, other members of the busi- number for the longest time.”—Gifford rine biologist Kent Carpenter in his ness sector and government agencies Pinchot 2004 study, but we’re getting ahead of with a venue through which they could Call First Philippine Conservation the story. contribute to the conservation of Philip- Inc. (FPCI) a company in the business First, in 1999, there was the creation pine biodiversity. of saving the world, one natural re- of FPCI as an extension of Lopez Group source at a time. chairman Oscar M. Lopez’s involve- Turn to page 6 2 LOPEZLINK October 2006 Meralco, First Holdings among biggest in revenues, profit in H1 PUBLICLY listed companies earned in the small- and medium-sized enterpris- P122.6 million in the first half, up 19.82% Investments Corp. (SMIC), P31.46M; SMIC, P7.15M; Globe Telecom, P5.8M; 29.67% more during the first es (SMEs) board. from a year ago. Globe Telecom Inc., P30.7M; and Bank of the Philippine Islands, P4.7M; semester to reach P106.billion from “The impressive income performance Meralco came in third with P93.2M, up Metropolitan Bank and Trust Co., P26.2M. Pilipino Telephone Corp., P4.5M; SMC, P82.21B the previous year, a wel- of the listed companies reaffirms percep- by 86.51% from last year. Meanwhile, PLDT came in the biggest in P4.5M; and JG Summit, P4.07M. come boost to the Philippine Stock tions that the economy stands on solid The others in the top ten in revenues in- profit with a net income of P15.64M in the Lim observed that listed companies are Exchange (PSE). ground despite the challenging political clude Petron Corp. with P107.1M; Philip- first half, while FPHC posted P6.7 million in piling up earnings at a clip faster than the Based on unaudited financial state- environment here and abroad,” PSE pres- pine Long Distance Telephone Co. (PLDT), net income to land in the fourth spot. First pace of increase of their stock prices. ments submitted by 231 listed domestic ident Francis Lim noted. P62.4M; JG Summit Holdings Inc., Gen Corp. made it to No. 10 with P3.5M. “Certainly, any discerning investor will companies on Sept. 19, all industry groups San Miguel Corp. (SMC) topped the P40.3M; Ayala Corp., P35.7M; First Philip- Rounding out the biggest earners were take the information as a cue to buy local enjoyed higher earnings, including those listed companies in revenues, turning in pine Holdings Corp. (FPHC), P32.9M; SM Ayala Corp. with a net income of P7.3M; stocks,” he said. BayanTel chief executive consultant Tunde First Gen eyes Mirant assets Fafunwa and SVP Joevel Rivera (3rd and AFTER winning the bidding for two to match the offer of prospective bidders. earlier share sale, which allowed the 4th from left) with government-owned power plants, First First Gen however did not confirm re- company to raise some $165 million. Ericsson Gen Corp. has now set its sights on the ports of a possible partnership, with Mirant, the most profitable company Telecommunications Inc. Philippine assets of Mirant Corp. Marubeni Corp. and Tokyo Electric of in the Philippines before being overtaken (Phils.) president and The company confirmed its interest Japan, to bid for the assets. by the telecoms boom, is divesting its in- country manager in the “prospective sale of Mirant pow- First Gen which in September 2006 terests in the country and the Caribbean Rajendra Pangrekar and er assets in the country” in a recent dis- bid for and acquired its first state-owned as part of a new business strategy. It op- Ericsson Southeast Asia closure to the Philippine Stock Ex- power plant in two years, plans to double erates two coal-fired power plants with a president Jan Signell change. its power-generating capacity by adding combined capacity of more than 2,000 during the contract Observers say that the company, one 1,700 megawatts to its current 1,725 MW, while its generating assets in the signing. of 30 investors that have shown interest MWover the next five years. The expan- Philippines are valued at between $2.5 in the Mirant assets, would need partners sion will be funded by the proceeds of an billion and $3 billion. Ericsson to boost Power distributors start move to PBR broadband services IN compliance with the move of the En- “With this shift in the distribution shift to PBR by the year 2010; the Na- ergy Regulatory Commission (ERC) to- rate-setting methodology, consumers can tional Transmission Corporation became BAYANTEL has signed a frame agreement the highest-quality performance with multi- wards Performance Based Rate-Setting expect higher levels of service as PBR the first regulated entity in the Philip- with Ericsson to provide its Ethernet DSL service functionality based on well-estab- (PBR), Meralco, Cagayan Electric Pow- incorporates incentive and penalty pines to shift to PBR in 2003. Access (EDA) solution that will enable lished Ethernet technology. It lets operators er and Light Co. (Cepalco) and Dagupan mechanisms related to electric and cus- To provide consumers ample oppor- BayanTel to continue providing an en- develop their business beyond basic IP con- Electric Co. (Decorp), filed on Septem- tomer service performance of distribu- tunity to air their concerns on the afore- hanced platform of broadband services and nectivity, ensuring the ability to offer triple- ber 1 their first applications under the tors,” Meralco president and chief oper- mentioned petition, ERC has slated hear- reliable connections to more customers. play services to home and office environ- Rules for Setting Distribution Wheeling ating officer Jesus Francisco said. ings beginning September this year until The contract is part of an ongoing deploy- ments in a way that is cost-efficient and fu- Rates or RDWR. At the same time, Francisco added, January next year. ment of Ericsson’s EDA solution for ture-proof. Meralco, Cepalco and Decorp com- PBR will give utilities a more stable and The government regulator expects to BayanTel’s nationwide DSL rollout under BayanTel offers DSL as a stand-alone prise the first three entrants to PBR, an predictable regulatory environment for resolve the petition by mid-2007. the brand names BayanTel DSL and Sky product, which means customers need not internationally accepted rate-setting continued investments in the distribution Meralco said that aside from follow- DSL. be landline subscribers of BayanTel. The methodology that was adopted by the sector. ing the mandate of law, the primary con- To date, BayanTel is one of Ericsson’s company has more than 20,000 Sky DSL ERC in accordance with the Electric Earlier this year, ERC directed all in- sideration in its application was still con- biggest customers for its EDA solution in and BayanTel subscribers at present. (J. Ro- Power Industry Reform Act (Epira). vestor-owned distribution utilities to sumer interest. (Maite Bueno) Southeast Asia. Ericsson EDA combines jo) Bayad Center accepts bill BayanTel beefs up backend payments overseas infra, standardizes on Microsoft BAYANTEL has acquired EMC Clariion to push our data availability to new thresholds,” HERE’s good news for overseas Filipino CX700 and CX500, Navisphere, SnapView and the CIO added. workers (OFWs) and migrants: they can now MirrorView solutions support its new services, Meanwhile, the company also entered into an directly pay for the bills of their loved ones in including remote data and application storage enterprise agreement with Microsoft Philippines the Philippines from where they are. services currently being used by leading online for a volume licensing program that will allow it Bayad Center, the country’s leading game providers. to utilize genuine Microsoft software at dis- payment center, has accredited branches The implementation of the EMC networked counted prices. in key cities around the world to accept storage and information management software Products covered include Microsoft Office payments of bills such as those in utilities, will help the company improve data manage- Professional, Microsoft Windows Professional mobile and land lines, internet, insurance, ment and protection, and strengthen service de- Desktop Operating System upgrade and Core real estate, and even the SSS. livery. Client Access License. The agreement will also OFWs and migrants can directly settle “Customer satisfaction is our commitment involve deployment planning, staff training to their obligations through the Bayad Over- and the only way to really deliver on that is to product support and software upgrades. seas available in Japan, United Kingdom, ensure that service interruption is avoided BayanTel’s service areas in Metro Manila, Ireland, Italy, Spain, USA, Austria, Ger- many, Switzerland, Hong Kong, Macau, through round-the-clock availability of busi- Visayas and Mindanao now cover over 25 mil- (L-r) Aida Yuvienco, AVP and head for sales, marketing, and Saipan, Singapore, Malaysia, Taiwan, ness-critical applications and data,” said Bayan- lion people, nearly 33% of the population of the business development of Bayad Center; Manuel Lorenzo Oman, Korea, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Tel chief information officer Brigs Merin. Philippines. Their data is in a constant state of Tuason, president and CEO of Bayad Center; Mar Lazaro, Greece, Brunei and Canada. “We’ll be able to honor our service level flux with a customer base growing exponential- vice president for marketing and business development of This is made possible through partner- agreements because of the reliability of the stor- ly and the expansion of products and services.