Union Bank of the Philippines (UBP) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

[Presentation] Good afternoon, stockholders and guests. Welcome to the 2020 Annual Stockholders Meeting of Union Bank. As you must all know by now, in view of the current situation, we are conducting this meeting via live stream. May we introduce to you as present via this live streaming in today's meeting: Chairman Dr. Justo A. Ortiz, member of the Executive, Risk Management, Trust, Market Risk, Operations Risk Management and Corporate Governance committees; Vice Chairman, Erramon I. Aboitiz, Chairman of the Executive Committee, member of the Risk Management, Market Risk and Corporate Governance committees; Mr. Sabin M. Aboitiz, member of the Executive Committee; Mr. Luis Miguel O. Aboitiz, Chairman of the Technology Steering Committee and member of the Audit and Operations, Risk Management committees; Mr. Manuel R. Lozano, Chairman of the Trust Committee and member of the Executive Committee; Mr. Juan Alejandro A. Aboitiz; Ms. Nina D. Aguas, member of the Executive, Audit, Market Risk and Corporate Governance committees; Ms. Aurora D. Ignacio -- Ms. Aurora C. Ignacio, member of the Executive, Trust and Corporate Governance committees; Mr. Michael G. Regino, member of the Risk Management, Audit, Market Risk, Operations Risk Management and Technology Steering committees; Mr. Carlos B. Raymond, Jr., Chairman of the Risk Management Committee, member of the Audit, Market Risk, Operations Risk Management, Corporate Governance and Related Party Transaction committees; Retired Chief Justice Reynato S. Puno, Chairman of the Corporate Governance and Related Party Transaction committees and member of the Audit, Market Risk and Operations Risk Management committees; Dr. Francisco S.A. Sandejas, Chairman of the Operations Risk Management Committee, member of the risk Management, Audit, Market and Corporate Governance committees; Mr. Erwin M. Elechicon, Chairman of the Market Risk Committee, member of the Risk Management, Operations Risk Management, Corporate Governance and Technology Steering committees; Mr. Roberto G. Manabat, Chairman of the Audit Committee and member of the Risk Management, Market Risk, Corporate Governance, Technology Steering and Related Party Transaction committees; and President and Chief Executive Officer, Edwin R. Bautista, member of the Executive, Trust, Technology and Steering committees. Also present are the Management Committee and key officers of the bank. Dr. Justo A. Ortiz, our Chairman of the Board, will now preside over this meeting.

Thank you to our valued stockholders who attend this meeting via live streaming, who have voted in absentia through the bank's online voting portal and submitted their proxy forms appointing the Chairman as proxy. May I know from the Corporate Secretary if we have complied with the notice requirement for this stockholder meeting?

Yes, we have, Mr. Chairman. In accordance with the bank's bylaws and revised Corporation Code of the Philippines, I have caused to be duly served the notices of this meeting and the definitive information statement using the quick response or QR code to all stockholders of the bank as of record date of April 14, 2020, by personal delivery, by e-mail for those stockholders who have given their e-mail addresses, by posting on the bank's website and by way of disclosure to the Philippine Stock Exchange. This notice was also published in print and online format in the Philippine Star and Philippine Daily Inquirer on April 27 and 28, 2020, the last publication of which was 24 days prior to this meeting, in compliance with Section 49 of the revised Corporation Code and the SEC notice dated April 20, 2020.

The stockholders of record having been duly notified of this meeting, may I know from the Secretary if we have a quorum?

Yes, Mr. Chairman. Based on the record of attendance at today's meeting, there are represented in this meeting by proxy, by voting in absentia and by participation through remote communication, 923,000 -- 923,358,917 shares out of the total outstanding shares of the bank of 1,218,471,467 as of April 14, 2020, record date. As such, 75.78% of the total subscribed capital stock is present in this meeting. I, therefore, certify that there is a quorum in this meeting in compliance with the requirements of the bank's bylaws. Stockholders who participate through remote communication or in absentia are deemed present for purposes of quorum. The mode of attendance of stockholders will be reflected in the minutes of today's meeting.

There being a quorum, we shall now take up the items in the agenda for this meeting. May I know from the Corporate Secretary the rules of conduct and procedures for this meeting?

Mr. Chairman, stockholders have been notified on the rules of conduct and procedures of this meeting, stated in the explanation of agenda items of the notice of meeting and which form part of the definitive information statement. The rules of conduct and procedures are flashed on the screen.

We will now take up, first, the approval of the minutes of the Annual Stockholders' Meeting on May 24, 2019, copies of which are available in the bank's website. Are there any comments?

Mr. Chairman, I move that the minutes of the Annual Stockholders Meeting on May 24, 2019, be approved and ratified as recorded. My name is Ronald L. Rocapor, a stockholder of the bank.

And I second the motion. I'm Enrique A. Santos, your stockholder.

It has been moved and seconded that the minutes of the Annual Stockholders' Meeting on May 24, 2019, be approved and ratified as recorded. May I ask the Corporate Secretary for the voting results of the approval of the minutes of the previous meeting?

Mr. Chairman, 923,358,852 shares or 100% of those present at this meeting were cast in favor of approving the minutes of the Annual Stockholders Meeting held on May 24, 2019.

Are there any objections? There being none, the motion is carried. Next in the agenda is the Chairman's report. Let me share a quote of Teddy Roosevelt. It is who we are, "The Man in the Arena," and the quote is, "It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs; who comes short again and again because there is no effort without error and shortcoming, but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows in the end, the triumph of high achievement; and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat." The rapid acceleration of technology, the rise of new business models and the evolution of customer expectations pose great threats to incumbents that choose to remain in status quo. A Boston consulting group study of 35,000 publicly listed companies calculated an average corporate life of 35 years, while Innosight has forecasted that S&P 500 companies will shrink their life spans to 12 years by 2027. And with the emergence of global market catalysts, natural disasters, pandemic, wars and other event risks, we can expect this to happen at even faster rates. The exception are companies that innovate, that have a purpose and that reinvent themselves. Often, the choice to operate as is, is driven by cognitive biases. "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." At Union Bank, we choose instead to dare greatly, focus on our vision, confident in ourselves and anchored on our purpose. As we navigate through the Fourth Industrial Revolution, we are building our business model cognizant of certain megatrends, which our strategic scenario planning has identified as opportunities only if we dare greatly. The first megatrend is the deconstruction of the firm. Small companies today are getting even more competitive than large corporations as they have access to global-scale, narrowly focused outsourced services in platforms hosted in the cloud. As such, they are not burdened by large fixed costs from labor and investments. This provides them scalability on demand and agility to generate relevant customer experiences in short time frame sprints, in contrast to integrated, vertical, command-and-control corporate structures. The second megatrend is hyper-personalization at scale. In contrast to economies of scales organized around mass production techniques, in the future, our business model needs to allow customers to hyper-personalize the product or service they consume. This is now possible with the rise of platforms with do-it-yourself functionalities, open application programming interfaces, APIs, software development kits, SDKs, and other development tools that enable enterprises and individuals to build solutions tailored to their own specific purpose or pain points. The rise of these self-service tools not only manifests a move towards a hyper-personalized world, but also fuels exponential innovation at unprecedented speed and ease, which makes it impossible for corporations who are not agile to keep up. And the third megatrend is the collaborative commons. The new economic order could be characterized by the devolution of market powers towards individuals and enterprises who turn themselves into both consumers and producers of goods and services within a shared platform. The emergence of data-driven and artificial intelligence-powered apps and platforms acting as resource aggregators along with the distributed and collaborative nature of the Internet will help facilitate this economic order. Airbnb grew to be the largest hotel chain without owning any real estate; Grab and Uber as the largest taxi companies without owning any vehicles; Amazon and Alibaba as the most valuable retailers without owning any inventory; and YouTube, Instagram and Facebook as the top media platforms, which own zero content. As tech-driven enterprises continue to embed themselves in our everyday lives, this list will simply go on, and eventually, this shared economy could evolve into decentralized autonomous organizations. Union Bank committed itself to a transformation journey to reinvent its business model in time with the emergence of the above megatrends. Union Bank's transformation is not a momentary shift, nor is it about technology alone. It is a multifaceted engagement harmonizing the personal purpose of each UnionBanker with the purpose of the enterprise. So we need to build our culture, a values-based and purpose-led culture. Building a customer-centric culture and living it is a critical component of prospering in the long term. We need to know who we are and why we do what we do. This is our ethos as Union Bank and as UnionBankers. And this is what our customers engage with, not just products and services. We changed our strategy aiming for a moonshot. Aim 10x, not 10%. Aim for customer segments of one. Being confronted with seemingly impossible, big, bold and audacious goals pushes us to think beyond our present and constantly be at the frontier of the future. Collaboration is a key component of attaining this. We've modified our space from physical to virtual. Customer experience is the value proposition of any business. The minimum hygiene is 24/7 availability, Six Sigma reliability, real-time fulfillment, safe and secure. This is the foundation of evolving into self-service personalization and co-creation with customers through a wide variety of development tools and interfaces, only achievable in virtual space. We've digitized our processes to the core. Fulfilling the moonshot and bringing our customers to the virtual space cannot happen profitably without being digital to the core. Further, with the advent of Internet of Things and artificial intelligence, for us to deliver the personalized experience demanded by each and every customer, we need to develop contextual and cognitive insights to preempt their needs and wants. The gathering, storing, accessing and insighting of financial and nonfinancial data within a data governance framework is only meaningful if all interfaces with platforms and apps and interactions with the customer are in digital form. One of our values is Ubuntu. We believe in symbiotic convergence. There are immense benefits that can come from large networks; shared resources; distributed risk; well-governed, rich data sets; and healthy exchange of ideas. Symbiosis can even exist among competitors in a collaborative commons to deliver unique solutions and superior experiences to customers. And our people, they are agile. Co-creating products and services, unique solutions and specific personalized features in a customer-centric organization at the speed required to be competitive cannot be achieved in a command-and-controlled, siloed vertical structure. We need empowered, self-organizing and multifunctional squads in an agile organization to resiliently and quickly respond in a high-volume, high-frequency and high-variety co-creative process. As we embrace uncertainty and prepare ourselves for the promise of the coming age, we are guided by the constancy of our purpose: to elevate lives, to fulfill dreams, to enable communities through smart banking in the spirit of Ubuntu. And we will persist to co-create innovations for a better world, knowing that it is our customers who will ultimately chart our path forward. Indeed, the future begins with you. Let us once more renew our commitment to Union Bank. Our bank. Our future. Let me now call on our President and Chief Executive Officer, Edwin Bautista, to make his report on the operations and actions done by the Board, its committees and the management of the bank for the year 2019.

Good afternoon. 2019 was a banner year for Union Bank. We are pleased to report that your bank delivered an all-time high net income of PHP 14 billion, double the previous year. Our return on equity of 15.3% was the highest among all publicly listed universal banks. This allowed the bank to increase its cash dividend payout to PHP 3.50 per share from PHP 1.90 the previous year. Our financial results were driven by: one, a robust growth in our loan portfolio, which increased by 21% year-on-year, this coming from our high-yielding commercial, SME, mortgage and credit card businesses; second was our strong trading gains, which grew by 6.1x compared to last year; and finally, a higher fee income, which was up by 24% due to higher transaction volumes across the parent bank and its subsidiaries. In 2019, we continued to reap significant benefits from our digital strategy. We onboarded close to 1.3 million customers due to the accessibility and superior customer experience brought about by our digital touchpoints. With our automation and process reengineering efforts, we were able to scale up operations and keep costs flat, even while continuing investments in a technology and innovation company, UBX. Our subsidiaries also ended the year on a high note. City Savings Bank maintained industry leadership with DepEd salary loans back on track. Motorcycle loans grew 6.3x from the start of the year, reaching 5,000 units in the month of December 2019 as we continue to expand our dealer partnerships nationwide. UBX gained much traction in its first year of operations. It already launched 3 platform start-ups. i2i continues to fulfill its goal of connecting Filipinos from far flung areas to the country's main financial network. It already onboarded 53 rural banks with more than 900 branches onto its blockchain platform. UBX also launched Bux, a digital payment and logistics fulfillment platform for e-commerce merchants; as well as SeekCap, which provides access to credit for MSMEs. To date, Bux has already onboarded close to 30,000 digital merchants since its launch in December 2019. Given the observed shift to digital today, we are optimistic that these platforms will further take flight. Now to give you a 2020 update. The industry and the country had a rough start in 2020. The COVID-19 pandemic posed immense challenges, not only locally, but to the global economy. But your bank is entering this crisis with a strong balance sheet, and we are confident the bank can weather the effects of the crisis. We already disclosed our first quarter results. Your bank registered a net income of PHP 2.6 billion in the first quarter of this year, 22% higher than last year. Our solid financial results allowed us to book higher provisions for future credit losses. We deemed it prudent to set aside more reserves in preparation for an economic slowdown. To date, our NPL ratio remains low and our capital more than adequate. With this, we are confident that our balance sheet can withstand the impact of this crisis. The business disruption of this crisis is unprecedented. But due to our digital transformation program, we had a relatively smooth transition into operating under the ECQ, or the enhanced community quarantine. This enabled us to provide banking services to our customers while ensuring the health and welfare of our people. At day 1 of the ECQ, we were able to enforce 90% work-from-home arrangement for our head office employees while performing all the critical banking operations. 100% of our call center agents are also working from home while maintaining 24/7 customer services. Our salespeople also continued to do client calls from home and from branches to address client needs. In short, your bank was business as usual despite the ECQ. During the ECQ, we also needed to make sure that we support the cash and liquidity requirements of the economy and our customers. Hence, we ensured that ample branches were open during the ECQ, particularly in NCR. 93% of our branches remained open in the first weeks of the ECQ. More importantly, our Ark branches are today configured in such a way that physical contact and face-to-face interactions are minimized through social distancing configuration, self-service machines and digital queuing platform. Moreover, we also rolled out new solutions to help alleviate our customers' pain points. We introduced our Bank on Wheels initiative and deployed them to areas with large transaction needs. We launched the Send Money to Remittance Centers capability in our Union Bank online app, enabling customers to send money online to the 10,000 locations of our remittance partners. Furthermore, we were among the first to offer free funds transfer services via InstaPay and PESONet to encourage customers to bank from home. Due to the ECQ, most of our customers resorted to using our digital channels to continue banking with us. Because of this, we achieved record highs in the month of March in terms of digital account opening in our Union Bank online app as well as corporate enrollment into our platform, the portal. The shift in customer behavior that we're seeing today may very well be the precursor to the digital tipping point. This crisis has shown that with digital capabilities, a bank can be run from home, that business will adjust to a cashless environment and that we don't have to go to a branch every day to perform our banking needs. Despite the crisis, there is no reason to slow down our digital transformation. Rather, we should accelerate it. And should this digital future manifest immediately, we assure the shareholders that your bank is ready today. We have learned a lot from this situation. And so we aim to use them as we carry on with Phase 3 of our digital transformation strategy, which is the year of commercialization and monetization of the bank's initiatives. Going forward, we believe that data analytics and artificial intelligence will be the critical technologies that will drive our digital transformation strategy. With this, our data analytics team will be beefed up with behavioral science capabilities to enrich business actions with insight on customer behavior. Leading this front is a recently hired Senior Advisor for Data and Artificial Intelligence, Dr. David Hardoon, formerly with the Monetary Authority of Singapore as Chief Data Officer and Head of Data Analytics Group. We are convinced that his top-notch expertise and experience in the international space will certainly help streamline the bank's data processes, maximize utilization of customers' data and ultimately propel the brand to greater heights. Our achievements and plans would not have been done if it weren't for the support of our stakeholders. So I would like to take this opportunity to express our appreciation to the Board of Directors for their belief in our vision and continued guidance as we navigate through our desired path. To all UnionBankers, thank you for your hard work and dedication to our purpose. You carried on amidst difficult circumstances. And so the bank also remains committed to serving you, our employees. Finally, I would like to thank our customers, partners and shareholders for your continued patronage throughout these years. It is for you that we are powering the future of banking, and with your support, this shall be achieved. The future begins with you. Thank you.

Thank you, Edwin. May we have a motion to approve the annual report of the bank for the year 2019, indicating the bank's vision, plans and accomplishments, including the actions of the bank management and -- as well as the audited financial statement as of December 31, 2019? Is there any motion to approve the annual report and audited financial statements as of December 31, 2019?

I move that the bank's annual report and audited financial statement as of December 31, 2019, be approved. I am Derrick J. Nicdao, your stockholder.

I second the motion. My name is Maria Theresa S. Daguiso, a stockholder of the bank.

It has been moved and seconded that the annual report of the bank and audited financial statements as of December 31, 2019, be approved. May I ask the Corporate Secretary for the voting results of the approval of the annual report and audited financial statements as of December 31, 2019?

Mr. Chairman, 922,788,317 shares or 99.94% of those present at this meeting were cast in favor of approving the annual report of the bank and audited financial statements as of December 31, 2019.

Are there any objections? There being none, the motion is carried. May I ask our moderator for questions that may have been sent by the stockholders?

Mr. Chairman, no questions have been submitted by the stockholders. However, all questions relative to the agenda items presented at this live webcast will be submitted to the Office of the Corporate Secretary via e-mail, as shown on the screen. Advanced answer will be sent to the stockholders' e-mail addresses. Thank you.

Thank you. Next in the agenda is the ratification of actions of the Board, its committees and the management of the bank, as reported by our President and CEO, including the actions of the management of the bank, together with all the related party transactions disclosed in the Notes to Financial Statements, Note 32, pages 137 to 142, and are attached to the definitive information statement.

Mr. Chairman, I move to ratify and approve the actions and decisions made by the Board, its committees and the management of the bank in the year 2019, as reported by our President and CEO, together with all related party transactions disclosed in the Notes to Financial Statements, Note 32, pages 137 to 142. I am Edzel S. Babas, a stockholder of the bank.

Mr. Chairman, my name is Margaret O. Chao, a stockholder of the bank. I second the motion.

It has been moved and seconded that the actions and decisions of the Board, its committees and the management of the bank in the year 2019, as reported by our President and CEO, together with all related party transactions disclosed in the Notes to Financial Statements, Note 32, pages 137 to 142, and contained in the Definitive Information Statement be ratified and approved. May I ask the Corporate Secretary for the voting results of the approval of this item in the agenda?

Mr. Chairman, 922,788,317 shares or 99.94% were cast in favor of approving the past actions of the Board, its committees and the management of the bank in the year 2019, as reported by our President and CEO, together with all related party transactions disclosed in the Notes to Financial Statements, Note 32, pages 137 to 142, and contained in the Definitive Information Statement.

Are there any objections? There being none, the motion is carried. Next in the agenda is the appointment of the external auditor of the bank for fiscal year 2020.

Mr. Chairman, I move that the accounting firm of SyCip, Gorres, Velayo & Company be appointed as the external auditor of the bank for fiscal year 2020. I'm Angela Karen N. Malabanan, a stockholder of the bank.

Do we have a second?

I second the motion. I'm Carlo Eñanosa, your stockholder.

It has been moved and seconded that the accounting firm of SyCip, Gorres, Velayo & Company be appointed as the external auditor of the bank. May I ask the Corporate Secretary for the voting results of the approval of this item in the agenda?

Mr. Chairman, 922,788,317 (sic) [ 922,788,217 ] shares or 99.94% were cast in favor of approving the appointment of the accounting firm SyCip, Gorres, Velayo & Company as the eternal auditor of the bank for fiscal year 2020.

Are there any objections? There being no objections to the appointment of SyCip, Gorres, Velayo & Company as the bank's external auditor for fiscal year 2020, the motion is carried. Next on the agenda is the approval of the amendments to the bylaws of the bank to comply with the applicable provision of the revised Corporation Code and the manual of regulations for banks. These amendments were endorsed by the Board of Directors of the bank at its meeting held on March 27, 2020. May I ask the Corporate Secretary to state the sections for amendments?

Mr. Chairman, Section 2 of Article II; Section 1, subparagraphs (b), (c), (d), (e) and (f); and Section 2 of Article IV; as well as Sections 6, 16, 18, 20, 22, 23 and 24 of Article V involve amendments, which refer to the period for closing of the transfer of -- closing of the transfer book, the time and manner of holding the Annual and Special Meeting of Stockholders and the quorum requirement of these meetings. These changes are made to align with the revised Corporation Code. The changes to Article V pertain to the composition of membership of the Risk Management, Corporate Governance, Audit, Market Risk and Operational Risk Management committees, and these are likewise revised to align with the new manual on regulation for banks. Finally, Section 23 of Article V refers to the duties and responsibilities in the Market Risk Committee, amended in keeping with evolving functions of the committee. The full texts of these amended sections and their explanations are provided in Item 17, page 34 (sic) [ page 31 to 33 ] of the Definitive Information Statement.

Do I hear a motion to approve the amendments of Section 2 of Article II; Section 1, subparagraphs (b), (c), (d), (e), (f); and Section 2 of Article IV; and Sections 6, 16, 18, 20, 22, 23 and 24 of Article V of the bank's bylaws as recommended?

Mr. Chairman, I move to approve the amendments of Section 2, Article II; Section 1, subparagraphs (b), (c), (d), (e), (f); and Section 2 of Article IV; and also Sections 6, 16, 18, 20, 22, 23, 24 of Article V of the bank's bylaws as recommended. I am Maria Eloisa M. Mariano, your stockholder.

I second the motion. My name is Andres B. Alcantara, Jr., your stockholder.

It has been moved and seconded that the amendments of Section 2 of Article II; Section 1, subparagraphs (b), (c), (d), (e), (f); and Section 2 of Article IV; and Sections 6, 16, 18, 20, 22, 23 and 24 of Article V of the bank's bylaws be approved. May I ask the Corporate Secretary for the voting results of the approval of this item in the agenda?

Mr. Chairman, 923,358,852 shares or 100% were cast in favor of approving the amendments of Section 2 of Article II; Section 1, subparagraphs (b), (c), (d), (e) and (f); and Section 2 of Article IV; and Sections 6, 16, 18, 20, 22, 23 and 24 of Article V of the bank's bylaws.

Are there any objections? There being none, the motion is carried. We come now to the election of directors for 2020-2021 term. Election is made in accordance with our bylaws, where the directors of the bank have a term of 1 year, subject to reelection. The floor is now open for nomination of members of the Board of Directors of the bank to serve as directors of the bank under the new term. 15 seats in the Board are available to be filled up. They were qualified and screened by the Corporate Governance Committee of the bank at the meeting held on March 23, 2020. Their qualifications of directors of the bank are in compliance with the provisions of the revised Corporation Code, existing Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas regulations and Security and Exchange Commission circulars. The bank has not received any objection from stockholders when the list of nominees contained in the bank's Definitive Information Statement, SEC Form 20-IS, was released to all stockholders. Thus, their nomination and election as directors of the bank will be for a term of 1 year starting today until the next regular stockholders' meeting.

Mr. Chairman, I am Rahni R. Svenningsen, a stockholder of the bank, and I have the honor to nominate the following as members of the Board of Directors of Union Bank: Justo A. Ortiz, Erramon I. Aboitiz, Sabin Aboitiz, Luis Miguel O. Aboitiz, Manuel R. Lozano, Juan Alejandro A. Aboitiz, Nina D. Aguas, Aurora C. Ignacio, Michael G. Regino and Edwin R. Bautista.

I second the nominations. I'm Ivy T. Zuñiga, your stockholder.

I nominate Mr. Carlos B. Raymond, Jr., as Independent Director of the bank. My name is Raquel P. Palang, a stockholder of the bank.

And I second the nomination. I am Enrique A. Santos, your stockholder.

I nominate Retired Supreme Court Justice Reynato S. Puno as an Independent Director of the bank. I'm Maria Theresa S. Daguiso, your stockholder.

I second the nomination. I am Maria Eloisa M. Mariano, your stockholder.

I nominate Dr. Francisco S.A. Sandejas as an Independent Director of the bank. I am Angela Karen N. Malabanan, your stockholder.

I second the nomination. My name is Edzel Babas, stockholder of the bank.

I nominate Mr. Erwin M. Elechicon as an Independent Director of the bank. I am Margaret O. Chao, your stockholder.

I second the nomination. My name is Andres B. Alcantara, Jr., your stockholder.

I nominate Mr. Roberto G. Manabat as an Independent Director of the bank. I am Ivy Zuñiga, your stockholder.

I second the nomination. I am Rahni R. Svenningsen, your stockholder.

My name is Raquel P. Palang, your stockholder. There being 15 directors already nominated, I move to close the nomination and for all the 15 nominees to be declared as duly elected directors of the bank.

I second the motion to close the nomination and to declare the nominees as duly elected directors of the bank.

Thank you. It has been moved and seconded that the nominations for members of the Board of Directors of the bank be closed and that all the nominees be declared as duly elected directors of the bank to serve their 1-year term. Are there any objections? There being none, the motions are carried. There being enough seats in the Board to be filled up by all the 15 nominees, the [Technical Difficulty] of the bank to serve for the ensuing 1-year term. Yours truly, Justo A. Ortiz, Erramon I. Aboitiz, Sabin M. Aboitiz, Luis Miguel O. Aboitiz, Manuel R. Lozano, Juan Alejandro A. Aboitiz, Nina D. Aguas, Aurora C. Ignacio, Michael G. Regino, Edwin R. Bautista; and Independent Directors, namely Carlos B. Raymond Jr.; Retired Chief Justice, Reynato S. Puno; Francisco S.A. Sandejas; Erwin M. Elechicon; Roberto G. Manabat. The Corporate Secretary is directed to apply the votes of those present in today's meeting in favor of the 15 nominees who are all deemed as duly elected.

Yes, Mr. Chairman. All votes cast and received by the stock transfer unit of the bank have been applied. The results of the votes cast are shown on the screen.

Congratulations to all our newly reelected directors. The business of this meeting has been concluded. Can we have a motion for adjournment?

I am Ronald L. Rocapor, stockholder of the bank, and I move that the meeting be adjourned.

I second the motion. I am Edzel Babas, your stockholder.

It has been moved and seconded that the meeting be adjourned. Are there any objections? There being none, the motion is carried, and the meeting is adjourned. Thank you.

Ladies and gentlemen, that ends our annual meeting. To continue our post-meeting tradition, all stockholders and guests who have registered for today's live webcast will receive their refreshments. This will be sent to you via e-mail with the codes that you can redeem from your partner restaurants. It is our simple way of expressing our gratitude for your trust in what we do. Thank you, and good afternoon.