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iVantage buys Philequity Management, Inc.

Publicly-listed holding firm iVantage Corp. has acquired a majority stake in mutual funds manager Philequity Management Inc. (PEMI), which has almost P3 billion in assets under management.

PEMI manages the Philequity Fund, Philequity Index Fund, Philequity Money Market Fund and Philequity Dollar Income Fund.

The Investment Company Association of the Philippines recently awarded PEMI’s flagship Philequity Fund as best performing equity mutual fund of the decade with a compound annual return of 18.2 percent.

For this year, Philequity Fund  is the  top performer among mutual funds with a year-to-date return of 25.97 percent as of June 18, 2007.  It also leads in the three- and five-year performance with returns of 38.5 percent and 54 percent, respectively.

“Our acquisition of a 51 percent interest in PEMI is in line with our thrust to focus investments in the financial services industry,” said iVantage president Ed Bunyi. “We see great growth potential in the local investment and asset management business over the medium term.”

iVantage is also into the remittance business through its wholly-owned subsidiary eBusiness Services Inc (eBiz).  eBiz is a major agent of global remittance giant Western Union in the Philippines.  Thus, iVantage provides a good play on the robust remittance business given the continued strong growth in overseas Filipino workers (OFW) remittances.

iVantage has also raised its stake in subsidiary Yehey! Corp., the country’s premier Internet portal and Internet marketing solutions company.  Yehey! is slated to be listed by way of introduction in the Philippine Stock Exchange.