The Market Monitor Minding the Nation's Business
State-owned Land Bank of the Philippines (Landbank) has a new chief—former Officer-in-Charge Andres Sarmiento, who served in a concurrent position as executive vice president, after the bank’s President and CEO Gilda E. Pico’s term ended on July 14.
She was appointed to head the government financial institution (GFI) on July 14, 2010.
In a statement, Landbank said Sarmiento was appointed by the newly composed Landbank board during its first meeting last Thursday.
Landbank’s board is headed by Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III, and is composed of Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel Piñol, Agrarian Reform Secretary Rafael Mariano, and Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III.
Four other members of the board come from the private sector and farmers’ group, but the bank is yet to name them.
Pico, who served as the bank’s president for 10 years, was the first female president of Landbank; she worked there for 35 years.
Her term focused on expanding the bank’s program and services on priority sectors, namely farmers and fishermen, microenterprises and small and medium enterprises (SMEs), rural banks, and agriculture.
In a statement, Landbank said Pico officially ended her term in line with Memorandum Circular No. 1 of the Office of the President.
The new Landbank board noted the expiration of Pico’s term and appointed Sarmiento officer-in-charge. For the past four years, Landbak was the highest cash-dividend remitter to the national government as a way of contributing revenue-generation initiatives for the expansion of development projects and social services.
Landbank registered steady growth in net income from P8.06 billion in 2010 to P13.3 billion in 2015, while assets expanded to P1.28 trillion from P569 billion, and deposits to P1.13 trillion from P433.5 billion.
With Pico at the helm, Landbank bagged numerous local and international awards, including the Bank of The Year award for the Philippines in 2014, conferred by The Banker, the world’s leading monthly journal of records and considered as the Oscars of the banking industry.