Cash dividend. There are three dates that the public investors generally monitor and remember when a listed company declares dividends. To illustrate: The board of directors of ABS-CBN Broadcasting Corp. approved on March 26, 2008, which is the approval date, a P0.825-per-share dividend, which it will pay its stockholders as of April 30, 2008, which is the record date, on May 27, 2008, which is the payment date. The dividend declaration, the first for 2008 will require the payment of P643.156 million to the owners of 779.583 million outstanding common shares. This must be the regular dividend ABS-CBN distributes to its stockholders every year. On March 28, 2007, its board declared P0.45-per-share dividend, or P350.812 million, which ABS-CBN paid on May 27, 2008 its stockholders as of April 20, 2007. Profitability enables ABS-CBN to share with its stockholders from its accumulated retained earnings, which amounted to P13.381 billion and P12.465 billion as of end-2007 and end-2008, respectively. Dividends are declared only on available retained earnings.

Tax perks. Here is a footnote to the financial statement of GMA Network Inc., which was audited by SGV & Co., which should be of interest to producers of quality-movies: GMA Network was registered on February 19, 2007 “with the Board of Investments (BOI) as a new export producer of television and motion picture on a nonpioneer status under the Omnibus Investments Code of 1987 (Executive Order 226).”  As a BOI-registered enterprise, it “is entitled to income-tax holiday for the registered activities for four years starting from registration date.” The filing shows GMA Network enjoyed tax incentives of P56.95 million in 2007 but did not identify the “registered activities” which entitled it to the tax perks in 2007. However, GMA Network says its unit, GMA Films, produced Let the Love Begin and Lovestruck, which “grossed approximately P110 million and P42 million, respectively, at the box office.” In 2007, GMA Films’s valentine movie, The Promise, which it coproduced with Regal Films, grossed P60 million; Ouija, P95 million in its six-week run; and Desperadas, over P60 million.

Ownership update. The Manila Electric Co. has 1.115 billion outstanding common voting shares. A filing lists PCD Nominee Corp. as holder of 427.348 million shares, or 38.336 percent, for Filipinos and 156.475 million shares, or 14.037 percent, for foreigners. Of the PCD-held Filipino-owned shares, 245.819 million shares, or 22.046 percent, belong to over 1.2 million government workers, which entitle the Government Service Insurance System (GSIS) to 2.42 seats in Meralco’s 11-man board. A filing shows the Lopez family owns more shares than GSIS through First Philippine union Fenosa Inc. which owns 253.093 million shares, or 22.704 percent, and First Philippine Holdings Corp. with 119.082 million shares, or 10.682 percent. The two combine for 33.386 percent, or 3.672 seats in the board The Social Security System (SSS) holds for individual borrowers under its stock investment plan 43.884 million shares, or 3.936 percent. (The filing does not say if any of Meralco’s  employees is a borrower under SSS’s stock-investment plan.) PCD Nominee also holds 156.475 million shares, or 14.036 percent, for foreigners of which Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corp. and Standard Chartered Bank hold 77.195 million shares, or 6.92 percent, and 64.136 million shares, or 5.75 percent  Meralco Pension Funds owns 24.342 million shares, or 2.184 percent. All these shares total 1.042 million shares, or 91.856 percent.

Additional nominees. Meralco told the Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE) on Wednesday that it received the names of six more nominees to its 11-man board bringing the number to 17. Its preliminary statement—the information brochure for its annual stockholders’ meeting on May 27, 2008—which was posted on the PSE web site on March 6, 2008, and its definitive information statement (DIS) on April 8, 2008, contained 11 nominees for reelection—Bernardino R. Abes, Felipe B. Alfonso, Jesus P. Francisco, Winston F. Garcia, Peter D. Garrucho Jr., Manuel M. Lopez, Christian S. Monsod, Federico E. Puno, Generoso D.C. Tulagan, Washington Z. Sycip and Cesar E.A. Virata. Then it received new nominees to the board  that it had to file a new DIS on April 30, 2008. The new nominees are Daisy P. Arce, Antonio Garcia Jr., Jose Luis S. Javier, Vicente Panlilio, Jeremy Z. Parulan and Eusebio H. Tanco.

Loyalty award. Businessman John L. Gokongwei Jr., who turned 80 in 2006 but Anscor lists 81 as his current age, and Eduardo J. Soriano, 53 years old, are the longest-serving members of the seven-man board of A. Soriano Corp. They have been with the board for 27 years beginning May 21, 1980. Next to them are Andres Soriano III, 56 years old, Anscor’s chairman and chief executive officer, who has been director for 25 years, and Jose C. Ibazeta, 65, has been with Anscor 20 years. The “youngest” among them are 80-year-old Raymundo Pe, 10 years; 69-year-old Roberto Romulo and 70-year-old Oscar Hilado, nine years. While they should get their due recognition for their longevity in Anscor’s policymaking body, particularly Gokongwei, it is Anscor that deserves the loyalty award and should get it from SGV & Co. Anscor, in one of its filings, told regulators that SGV has been its external auditor since its (SGV’s) establishment in 1946. The holding company of the Soriano family was incorporated on February 13, 1930 and listed its shares on the Manila Stock Exchange on October 25, 1973.

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IN line with a strategy to dispose of non-core assets, Benpres Holdings Corp. of the Lopezes said it has sold its 18-percent ownership in Professional Services Inc.—owner and operator of the upscale The Medical City—for P600 million.

Filinvest to spend P500M on BPO space

GOTIANUN-led Filinvest Land Inc. (FLI) is spending P500 million this year to fund the completion of office spaces intended for the business process outsourcing (BPO) market.

SINGAPORE—Oracle Corp., the world’s largest enterprise software developer, is anticipating rapidly growing demand for improved Business Intelligence (BI) solutions with far more powerful applications that go beyond simple data collection and reporting.

CEBU CITY—SPi, a unit of Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. (PLDT) that provides outsourcing and offshoring (O and O) solutions, is rapidly expanding operations here in an effort to transfer a chunk of its projects into the country from the US.

PUBLICLY traded Atlas Consolidated Mining and Development Corp. said its net income in 2007 grew 515 percent to P289 million from P47 million a year earlier on the back of higher revenues from its nickel unit, Berong Nickel Corp.

There are three dates that the public investors generally monitor and remember when a listed company declares dividends. To illustrate: The board of directors of ABS-CBN Broadcasting Corp. approved on March 26, 2008, which is the approval date, a P0.825-per-share dividend, which it will pay its stockholders as of April 30, 2008, which is the record date, on May 27, 2008, which is the payment date.