BPI Savings dangles 30 franchise options for investors

A fruit shake stand for initial minimum investment of P500,000. A lechon kiosk for P750,0000. A gasoline station for P3.5 million to P4.6 million. A computer sales and service center for P5 million.   These are among the 30 franchise investment options a local savings bank has accredited and assembled to entice Filipinos toward entrepreneurship.   BPI Family Savings Bank president Jose Teodoro Limcaoco said Wednesday the thrift banking unit of the Bank of the Philippine Islands is searching the Visayas and Mindanao for 20 more good businesses seeking growth through franchising.   “What we want to do is find franchisors that are not in Metro Manila…because they have potential. We want them to move their concept to Manila and to Luzon. Now we’re telling our business centers in the provinces to look for the good businesses in (their) areas,” Limcaoco said.   He was referring to the likes of Julie’s Bakeshop, PR Gaz, and Phoenix Petroleum, which thrived in the countryside before opting to break into Metro Manila and are now on the BPI Family Savings Bank roster of 30 “Ka-Negosyo Best List brands” which Limcaoco claims is the only accredited list of franchise alternatives for Filipinos who are “willing to invest in themselves.”   Some of the bank’s accredited franchises are participating in a business fair at the Centris along EDSA near the MRT Quezon Avenue station from April 25 to 26.   “This is a program we’ve put in place to make it easier to go into business. We’re the matchmaker and the financing,” Limcaoco said.   The bank has saved the prospective franchise operator much of the trouble of putting together and presenting a business plan. The bank did all that already as part of its accreditation process, according to the BPI Savings official.   “When people want to get into business the first problem they have is what business they want to get into… Pick from these 30 we have. And then the next problem you have is financing. The reason we can do that is because we know the business already,” Limcaoco said.   He said the accreditation process takes about six to eight weeks and involves, among others, evaluation of the franchisors’ financials and plans.   “Before we accredited we studied the business already. We know how much the franchisee will make. Most of these franchisors have a return on investment (ROI) of under three years... some of them two years. It’s very good ROI,” Limcaoco noted.   He revealed that the bank “is willing to finance up to 70 percent of the cost of the franchise” and could even–in some cases–waive the collateral for entrepreneurs who have been clients of BPI for some time.   “You have to be an existing BPI customer. We know who you are. If you have never been our depositor and you walk in, we ask for a little collateral there,” he said. —VS, GMA News