Breathing new life and direction into a newly acquired regional unit bank

Every generation needs a revolution - an entrepreneurial revolution

Rizal Philippines
July 28, 2016

I tried doing a bp myself. I am doing this for a rural bank which was just acquired and I was asked for advice on how to turn this around.  The BSP requires a BP too:

I started getting the inputs Monday, I attended their informal meeting yesterday. I started working on this this morning and was done by 12:30

3 days from input to output of a draft   5 hours to draft  What am trying to say:   You can do it YOU CAN SUBMIT THE DRAFT

I  Background:

The San Francisco bank  was recently acquired from its former owners recently, (March)   It was established on December 11, 1959 as the 235th rural bank to serve then the growing QC area area.  It has because of its managementand owners  kept up with the times.  It stopped lending for a time, has only about 1.300 depositors

It has been acquired by a group headed by dynamic business woman  who is engaged in construction, real estate, luxury goods trading and lending investor.

Its management team and Board of Directors:  include:

1.  Mr. AG   President and Director former head of a chemical petrochem plant, and now heads the first solar manufacturing plant in the PHL

2.   Mr EV  - VP and Director, formerly from from two large commercial bank

3,  Mr. EMR -  Manager of Operations, formerly cluster head and Senior Manager at a Universal Bank

Prof Jorge ideas, answers to emails from an Entrep show, shown last night at TV

Every generation needs a revolution - an entrepreneurial revolution

Makati Professional School
Makati City
July 15, 2016

Several weeks ago I got text messages and email from someone named Rheeza Candelaria who claimed to be an intern at ANC Shoptalk. She had questions which I readily answered via email, although I did not confirm or investigate who she was.  And then I forgot about them.  Last night, I found advice flashed at the ANC shop talk:

I hope you get some inspirations and more ideas from our conversation

What I mentioned in my test are formal institutions where an aspiring entrepreneur may obtain furnding:

1.  Micro finance instituions may be rural banks or institutions that are micro finance companies whose main purpose is to lend amounts of not exceeding P150,000.   They may be collateralized or non collateralized.  They are patterned after the Grameen Bank established by Mohammad Yunus.   They are usually clean loan, secured by joint and several commitment of a group of borrowers and paid regularly (weekly very much like the 5/6 of Bombay)  The group members undertake to collect from the members of a group.

2.  Cooperatives -  refer to credit cooperatives.  From what I know, one can borrow up to 2x your contribution to the cooperative.  Thus if your equity in the credit cooperative is P1,000, you can borrow up to P2,000   This encourages thrift, capital formation (that can help other cooperative members)   And the arrangement doubles the amount available for starting a venture.

3.  Grants -  There are foundations that gives grants to foundations and religious groups to fund projects of cooperatives neighborhood associations  I know of a priest who was able to obtain a grant from a Canadian donor in the amount of $1 million (P40 million) over a five year period. for Aetas in Tarlac.  They are to be used for schools, markets and livelihood project.   I learned from an MBA student, a Japanese expatriate working at ADB who said that ADB through him lent $5 million to DTI who in turn to Small Business Corp lent it to entrepreneurs.   through Tulong sa Tao page 28. Please further various govt programs for micro credit by various govt agencies

4.  Angel Investors  

      They are few and as luck would have it, SM was said to be have benefited from such angel investor:  the M is Mr. Senen Mendiola who gave assistance to Henry Sy early on, and the large fast food chain was helped by a furniture manufacturer in Cubao when he started .   Apple was helped by angel investor when such an angel lent Steve Jobs cash and credit in the amount of $200,000 total to start Apple.  They failed to get financing from a bank.  

     Dennis Mendiola founder of Chika got a boost from Oscar Reyes, former chief of Pilipinas Shell. Angel investors who are retired or semi retired business executives and entrepreneurs lend not only money but their expertise and network to t he business. But they demand higher than ordinary returns.

    We heard news that there seems to be a movement for growing number of angel investors

x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

Hi  Rheza:

From Entrepreneur - 10 ways to fund a start up

Answers to your follow up questions:

1.  Crowd funding is inviting possible lenders, investors, donors via the net. You present your offering business plan, as to banks or venture capitalists;  you make your pitch via the web (there could be apps or website for this) and try to get funders, lenders investors become interested in your project/product.  There are many ventures abroad that were financed/funded via crowd funding.  So parang inbound ang procedure (as in inbound marketing) Rather than outbound, you actively search for funders.

Quora - crowd funding platform in the Philippines

Those that are available are:

Upbuilds

The spark ;project

Go Get Funding

Crowding for start ups

Kickstarter

2.  Donation and grants for start ups

Multilateral agencies and NGOs donates, gives to communities and individuals (and other NGOs charitable institutions too) seed capital for starting business that are to be paid forward, or paid soft interest especially in devastated areas by calamities or catastrophes or that are impoverished.

You can get donations and grants via crowdfunding too.

Raising money for non profit org

Grants gov in the US -  How to obtain grants from Federal Agencies

Participating in the ANC Shop Talk Discussion

Every generation needs a revolution - an entrepreneurial revolution

Ateneo Professional School
Makati City July 14, 2016

I just came home from the taping  the Disaster Preparedness Episode of ANC Shoptalk that airs every Thursday evening at 11:00 pm. The featured businesses were:   Prepper + that sells Go Bags at 4th Floor of Fashion Section of Megamall (the new wing) and Pilipinas 911.  My participation there was to supply some of the guide questions to the anchor Ria Cojuangco Trillo. She is a very intelligent hostess and asks difficult question.  I also had to make the comments and suggestions on how to improve the business and what the future holds.

These are some of the questions I made for Prepper +.  It is is as though the business is under a strama scrutiny, or analysis is made for the business plan

I had to research late into the night studying the case and the business.  I made some questions which I hope would help the entrepreneurs analyze deeper their business (and not more difficult for them)   I hope this does not appear like a Strama panel defense questions

1.  Business name and concept

     1.  Why the name preppers?  Why the + ?  Are you referring to the Doomsday or Survival Preppers?

          Are the Philippine preppers your advocates (there are about 20,000+ members?

     2.  Are your assumptions about the business when you planned it correct vs reality as you operate your business now?  With regards to PTM and the use of the product?

2.  Industry:

    1.  How big is the industry?   How many are you in the business?

    2.  Is it an attractive industry?  Is the volume large enough and are the margins Ok

    3.  Threat of competition:

         1.  Are there barriers to entry?   Are they large enough to discourage competition?

            1.  From lessors (they have it all)

            2.  Suppliers

            3.  Wannabees (those who want to have share of the pie if the industry is big)

            4. Substitute products -  if they know the contents of the go bag, the prospects can make their own

3.  PTM  (Primary Target Market)

    Let us assume you trying to find through Customer and Market Research to find out who buy from you:

   1.  From SEC (ABCDE segment)   A and B?

   2.  From MM and those areas that were hard hit by floods?

       The assumption is that the victims and only those who can afford the products are buying?  CDE buyers and those from the province  wont be buying possibly.

  3.  There are those who say that preppers are of 3 types:

       1.  emergency responders, the 2 Mcgyvers (the campers outdoor people) 3.  the hardcore survivalists (apocalyptic)  Do you agree?

 4.  What is the actual use/purpose of the go buyers:

      1.  For emergency

      2  For the car

      3. For vacation (trip to Boracay/Palawan)

     4.  Just in case.

4.  Product:

     Buyers know about your products because of:

    1.  website

    2.  promos/events

    3. ads

    4.  Megamall location

    1.  The Preppers say that the go bag (Bug or Bag Out) must meet the 3 requirements of survival;   air food and water

         Does your bag conform to this.  (That within t72 hours, 3 days, the govt and other emergency workers can not respond and your go bag must let you survive for 3 days)

     2.  Most go bags have 30 items;   Does your go bag contain them:

         1.  Tools for cutting, setting up tent

         2.  Water, water filtration

         3.  Food for 3 days

         4. Sleeping gear:   space blanket and tent

         5.  maps and direction finder

         6.  Fishing hunting gear

     3.  The price of Walmart Go Bag is $30 basic and $300 premium.  Are you competitive

     4.  Other substitute products:

          My umbrella by Catherine Hooper:

               Go cards (tel # of whom to contact)  rescue, relatives;   data storage:   cost $750

              Go Plans   (how to react in emergency)

          Food stockpile planners

         Will you plan to expand into these?

Opportunities:      the disaster                             Threat:    sometimes no disaster, entry of new competitors,                                                                                             subsitue products

Strength:   located at Megamall, being first          Wekaness:   the other founders are not active. few products

                 Biboy is an ACE graduate

WTDN:

1.  More education and communication   Prepper is a life insurance, you buy it when you still do not need it.  But when disaster strikes..... you cant fiind one

2.  Instill more fear of disaster;   

3.  Partiicipate in govt events drills, NDRRMC collaboration

Many opportunities come our way

Every generation needs a revolution - an entrepreneurial revolution

Rizal Philippines
July 13, 2016

Yesterday after coming from a meeting where we were finalizing details of document to purchase a shell company, I got  call from a cousin doctor who wants to lower the interest of her current loan which racks in P200,000 interest monthly.  She went into this against advice now she wants a lender with a lower rate.

So we went to the office of her acquaintance who turned out to be a super millionaire, entrepreneurs, celebrity, (she was linked to celebrity.  )  She just acquired a bank has lending investor, into build and sell business. Her team in the bank are top names in the industry:   the chairman led a chem company, the VPs are from big medium sized banks and are celebs in their own right.

I told my story that:

1.  I worked in a rural bank before.   I know the manager of the bank she wanted to acquire in the town where I live;

2.  I headed a savings and loan association for 8 years and simultaneously established real estate projects to complement the savings and loan business.

3.  I am a grad school professor;

4.  I still have grand plans about memorial parks and subdivision development.

The CEO of the group of companies promised to help my cousin and wanted us to talk more on how to run her bank and how to develop her landbanking

Quality education with fewer students?n Careless whispers going around the school

Every generation needs a revolution - an entrepreneurial revolution

A security guard recently commented while I was going up the elevator at BI that there are much fewer enrolls now and most rooms are vacant and if there are occupants not so full.  I do not know why he made such comment. This is not the first time I heard whispers of this type of remarks.  May be this is part of the move to make education at the school level up.(not to mention great professors who are no longer around teaching)

Some careless whispers say that from 4 figures the number of students enrolled now is down to 3 digits.

The leadership and management of the school would be the one responsible and know the answer and solution to this.decline.  If the goal is to reduce enrollment, then they are successful and have better quality education then they are successful.

As a school teaching marketing and strategy, the professors can bang their heads together and find the answer. or solution if such exists