Where to Get Financial Statements of Companies in Philippines

Annual reports, particularly the financial statements and the notes accompanying them, are the mirrors that provide information about the financial position, performance, cash flow activities and changes in the financial position of a certain company or enterprise. Financial reports are used by owners, shareholders and managers in making important business decisions. Moreover, employees, investors, creditors, suppliers, the government and the public also use a company’s financial statements for different reasons. Investors and stock traders, for example, make use of financial statements for financial analysis in order to assess the viability of investing in a certain company or corporation. The following are tips and places where you can get or download online financial statements of companies in the Philippines.

 

The Company

If you are a stockholder or shareholder of a company, you can directly ask for the annual reports in their office. Big corporations, such as the Ayala Corporation, usually send a copy of their annual reports to their shareholders. Annual stockholders meeting are also held to discuss the annual reports to stockholders. Thus, if you own a share of the corporation (whether you only own one share or a thousand), you can simply attend the meeting and be oriented with the reports and other important corporate matters.

If you are not a stockholder, (e.g., a prospective investor), you can visit directly to the company’s official website and look for available Audited Financial Statements for download. Public companies typically publish annual reports in their own website. They usually place the reports in their investor’s relation area. Below are actual annual reports in PDF file format which can be downloaded in the websites of the following Philippine corporations (I’ll keep them updated once the 2011 annual reports become available).

Philippine Long Distance Telephone Company (PLDT)  (December 31, 2010) – Telecommunications 
Metropolitan Bank and Trust Company  (December 31, 2010)  – Universal Bank
Megaworld Corporation  (December 31, 2010)  – Construction
Ayala Corporation  (December 31, 2010) – Holding Company
SM Investments Corporation (December 31, 2010) – Holding Company
Benguet Corporation (December 31, 2010) – Mining
Peace and Equity Foundation (December 31, 2004 – 2009) – Non stock, Non profit Foundation

 

Philippine Stock Exchange

If you’re looking for the annual reports and financial statements of a publicly listed company, you can go to the website of the Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE or the “exchange”). PSE is a private organization that provides and ensures a fair, efficient, transparent and orderly market for the buying and selling of securities. To download annual reports, visit PSE’s page of listed companies and go to Listings & Disclosures > Listed Company Directory. There, you can find and select a certain listed company according to the names (alphabetical order) or according to the six sectors, namely Financials, Industrial, Holding Firms, Property, Services, and Mining & Oil sectors.

 

Securities and Exchange Commission

If the financial statements you’re looking for is not of a publicly listed company, or of companies whose stocks are not traded on the exchange, you won’t find those reports in the PSE website. This is because those companies are not required to submit their reports with the PSE.

For non-listed corporations, you may download the financial statements they have submitted with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) through the SEC-iView, which is one of the components of the SEC i-Report project. However, the SEC-iView is still on the process of updating their records to include the current documents which can be available for download. According to the SEC published information, they have just made available the documents that were submitted to the SEC from 2003 to September 2007.

The link to SEC documents online is available everyday except during 6:00 pm to 9:00pm from Monday to Friday. Furthermore, the SEC Documents Online facility is a “pay-per-use system”, which means you’ll be charged per use of the system. Pre-paid account may be purchased from the Securities and Exchange Commission Head Office which is located at the SEC Building, EDSA, Greenhills, Mandaluyong City, Metro Manila. The commission is still in the process of arranging for the M-payment system as one of the modes for the procurement of pre-paid load needed to access the system.