Leading Philippine bank to go on M&A spree

Rizal Commercial Banking Corporation wants to buy more Philippine banks with nearly P5 billion.

RCBC, the seventh biggest Philippine bank in terms of asset size, has set aside P5.2 billion to acquire a new bank or banks, and to open new branches and improve its operations.

President and CEO Lorenzo Tan said the money is part of the almost P6 billion in Tier 1 capital raised last year.

Funding also comes from Hong Kong-based CVC Capital Partners that acquired 15% of RCBC in 2011, raising the bank’s capital by P3.7 billion. The World Bank’s International Finance Corporation (IFC) also invested P2.1 billion in RCBC to support its lending growth particularly in SMEs, consumer finance and microfinance.

“Last year we brought in two investors, IFC and CVC Capital, and we brought in P5.8 billion of equity,” Tan said.

He noted that “. . . we brought in investors so that we could look at acquisitions and further growing our balance sheet. (Right now) we're looking around for banks to buy.”

At the end of the third quarter in 2011, RCBC earned P4.1 billion, up 11% year-on-year.

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