Abacus maps out plan to reduce costs, obligations

Publicly-listed financial holdings company First Abacus Financial Holdings Inc. will embark on a number of strategies to reduce costs and outstanding obligations and to further strengthen its revenue streams as part of efforts to streamline operations.

According to documents filed at the Securities and Exchange Commission, First Abacus is committed to further reduce its debt by at least one-third without sacrificing the integrity and the efficiency of its processes. It plans to achieve this by selling non-core assets.

"The company continues to put a premium on fulfilling its obligations to its creditors to keep its good standing and creditworthiness.

As of end-December 2002, First Abacus’s total liabilities stood at P1.33 billion compared with only P1.15 billion the previous year.

First Abacus said the company will also continue to streamline its organization and processes to enhance its capability to meet its strategic business objectives.

"Strategic decisions had to be made in order to sustain the company’s competitiveness and in keeping with our thrust of managing for the long-term," First Abacus said.

The company’s efforts to bring down costs and expenses yielded notable results as its losses decreased by 54 percent to P78.8 million from P172.3 million in 2001. Costs and expenses likewise went down to P227.7 million, a major improvement over the P307.6 million reported the previous year. Interest expense also declined to P101.3 million.

Interest expense continues to eat up a sizable chunk of the company’s cost and expense. Without interest expense, the company’s overall performance would have been positive.

First Abacus was formerly known as Seven Seas Oil Exploration Inc., an oil exploration firm listed in the Philippine Stock Exchange in 1994. After a structural reorganization, the company changed its primary corporate purpose to providing integrated financial services.

It changed its name and par value in the PSE in February 1996.

The company’s first strategic corporate realignment move was to acquire the Abacus Capital & Investment Corp., an operating investment house via a cash and stock swap. ACIC, in turn, owned 100 percent of Abacus Securities Corp. and Vista Holdings Corp.