In today’s Philippine Star “Hidden Agenda” column of Mary Ann Ll. Reyes:
The booming business process outsourcing industry is creating dozens of new multimillionaires among Filipinos corporate officers of publicly listed multinational BPO providers.
Catanduanes Rep. Joseph Santiago reveals that Filipino senior executives and managers of upstart BPOs with major operations in the Philippines are enjoying the benefits of stock-based compensation by way of options to acquire company shares at discounted rates. This incentive is on top of their regular salaries and bonuses.
Is it just the management? One call center executive speaks giving stock options across the board in another article,
RP call centers open to giving employees stock options:
PeopleSupport, currently operating one of the biggest call centers in the Philippines, has in fact been giving stock options to employees regardless of rank, said [Rainero] Bong Borja, PeopleSupport Philippines president and Global Operations vice-president.
Borja is also president of the Call Center Association of the Philippines (CCAP) and the Business Process Association of the Philippines.
“Giving stock options is a company-specific decision, and is sometimes used by companies as an employee benefit. As such, some companies may opt to give other benefits instead of [stock] options. However, we at PeopleSupport already provide stock options to our own employees,” he said.
The executive said that stock options given to employees vary according to position, performance, and tenure.
Offering stock options has created a “positive impact” on offshore operations in the country, Borja said. “It is definitely a differentiator.”
So why is Congress involved? Is there something wrong?
For instance, one Filipino executive is on record for recently selling 17,000 shares of PeopleSupport worth $177,650 (P9.8 million) at $10.45 per share, and for giving notice of his plan to sell another 17,000 shares. This is based on publicly available filings with the stock market regulators in the United States.
Wow, that’s a lot. The column does not name the person, so let’s look at Yahoo! Finance insider trading records for PeopleSupport. None other than:
19-May-05
BORJA, RAINERIO
Vice President
17,000
Direct Sale at $10.45 per share.
$177,650
I hope he and his industry really spread the wealth among the agents and employees so they could share in this:
Santiago says the stocks of BPO providers are among the hottest nowadays because the companies are growing revenues and profits at double-digit rates every year.