By Chino S. Leyco
State-run Social Security System (SSS) has tapped BPI Asset Management and Trust Corp. (BPI-AMTC) along with other four local fund managers to manage its investment reserve fund (IRF).
Aurora C. Ignacio, SSS president and chief executive
In a statement, Aurora C. Ignacio, SSS president and chief executive, said the pension fund deployed P7 billion to five fund managers to handle P3 billion worth of investments for balanced fund, another P3 billion for pure equity fund, and P1 billion for pure fixed income fund.
Ignacio, a former branch manager of the Ayala-led lender, said SSS had opened for bidding the hiring of nine local fund managers for its P9 billion IRF, but only P7 billion were deployed to qualified financial institutions.
“The remaining P2 billion allotted for two local fund managers will be open for rebidding this year,” Ignacio said.
Of the seven mandates that were put on the auction block, three were won by BPI-AMTC, giving the Ayala-led trust corporation P3 billion of the IRF.
BPI-AMTC, the country’s largest stand-alone trust corporation with P577 billion in assets under management, secured P1 billion each of balanced fund, pure equity fund, and pure fixed income fund.
SSS said BPI-AMTC was the lone bidder for fixed income fund mandate.
The Rizal Commercial Banking Corp. and ATRAM Trust Corp. also secured P1 billion each to handle the remaining P2 billion of the SSS investable balanced fund.
Meanwhile, other winners of the SSS pure equity fund mandates, which got P1 billion each, were Metropolitan Bank and Trust Co., and Philequity Management Inc.
“The SSS management believes that it can benefit from the investment of value-added services of the fund managers such as training, access to proprietary investment analysis and information and access to business analytics,” Ignacio said.
Under the old charter of the SSS, the pension fund is allowed to appoint local or foreign fund managers to manage the IRF.
The SSS investment reserve fund as of the end 2018 stood at P495.6 billion. Of the total, 43 percent is invested in government securities, 19 percent in equities, another 19 percent in loans to members, three percent for bank deposits, eight percent for corporate notes and bonds, seven percent in real estate and one percent for mutual fund.