The Perpetual Help Community Cooperative launched on Wednesday the CLIMBS Mutual Funds, its latest service for the cooperative’s members, this time on investment opportunities.
Jorge Lumasag Jr., president and chief operating officer of CLIMBS Investment Management & Advisory Corp., explained that CLIMBS is an insurance business that insures cooperative members but because these cooperatives are now generating huge capitals, there is a clamor as to where they should be putting these investments.
CLIMBS has seen this is an avenue for the cooperative to invest their money such as participating in the capital market, e.g. the Philippine Stocks Exchange, so CLIMBS has created a mutual fund to address the need, said Lumasag.
CIMAC in turn will manage the investments of their client-cooperatives, such as PHCCI, he added.
Lumasag expressed gratitude to PHCCI for shelling out a large amount to reach the paid up capital of 25 percent or P250 million of the required Php one billion authorized capital by the Securities and Exchange Commission.
It was PHCCI who first rolled out the paid up capital, he added.
A cooperative member who has excess cash may put their money in the mutual find where CIMAC will manage the investment in the PSE, which Lumasag describes as the “barometer of the Philippine economy”.
Lumasag further explained that ordinary citizens of Dumaguete without substantial funds cannot just join the stock market whereas if they put their money in the mutual fund, for as low as P5,000for starters, then they can participate in the stock market.
He encouraged the public to be wise in investing their money in things that have future that have future value and those that don’t have value at all, such as a cellphone whose value diminishes over time because of the fast turnover of new models.
Meanwhile, for his part, Ramil Repe, chair of the Board of Directors of PHCCI, explained why they decided to engage in the CLIMBS Mutual Funds.
This is an avenue for the ordinary cooperative member to be given a “training ground of how things are being played in the stock market”.
While PHCCI is searching for investment opportunities, most of its funds are “parked” in the banks, he pointed out.
For a cooperative member, the earnings in savings alone at PHCCI is not sufficient, which only gives such a small interest rate at two percent maximum, Repe pointed out.
Even the banks also give a very low interest rate, he added.
But if the extra money that is sitting in a savings account were transferred to investment such as in a mutual fund, there is always that opportunity to earn more, he said.
That is why cooperatives, especially those who are growing and who face the same dilemma on where to invest their money, pooled together and decided to create this mutual fund, Repe explained.
“We have funds for investment but we don’t know where to place them,” Repe said, noting the lack of financial expertise in the cooperative.
“That is why you need somebody to manage that (fund) for you because it is very costly to hire a fund manager”, Repe said.
The CLIMBS Mutual Funds is optional to PHCCI members and for outsiders who would like to avail of it, they have to first apply as member of PHCCI. (Judy Flores Partlow/PNA)
