Ayala-led Bank of the Philippine Islands (BPI) has sold back to the Gokongwei Group the lender’s minority stake in GoTyme Bank Corp. for P902.47 million.
“The sale is intended to address any potential conflict of interest created by the significant overlap in and similarity of product offerings of GoTyme Bank and BPI,” the lender said.
BPI said it will sell 744.00 million in common shares in GoTyme Bank to GoTyme Financial Pte. Ltd. and 7.95 million shares to Giga Investment Holdings Pte. Ltd. at P1.20 per share, subject to approval by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP).
The parties determined the selling price based on negotiations, it said.
The said shares were about 15 percent of the outstanding capital stock of GoTyme Bank.
The Go Tyme shares were acquired by BPI pursuant to the merger between BPI and Robinsons Bank Corp., with BPI as the surviving bank.
“After the sale, BPI will have no shareholdings in GoTyme Bank,” BPI said.
GoTyme Bank is a joint venture of Tyme Investments Pte. Ltd. with members of the JG Summit Group and Robinsons Retail Holdings Inc. and is one of the six banks with a digital banking license.
GoTyme Bank earlier said it is confident of reaching its target of having 5 million depositors by the end of the year as it is planning to offer more services to its customers.
Albert Tinio, the bank’s co-CEO said, the company is bullish on the economy as it is on track to hit its target number of depositors. In January, it reached 2.3 million depositors, some 14 months since it started operations in the country.
“Around December last year, our sister bank Tyme, became profitable. We said we can also do that; we’re very much on track to do that [to be profitable].”
Tinio said they still have commitments with the BSP, like the release of banking products to the public, such as dollar time deposit.