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THREETIME ROTARY CLUB OF MANILA JOURNALISM AWARDEE 2006, 2010, 2012
U.N. MEDIA AWARD 2008
A broader look at today’s business Saturday 18,June 201425, Vol. 2015 10 No. 40Vol. 10 No. 259 Thursday,
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GLOBAL BRANDS PICK MANILA AS THEIR 13TH MOST PREFERRED DESTINATION IN CBRE SURVEY
Manila joins list of top retail havens
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HE country’s capital, along with other cities in the Asia Pacific, made it to the list of most preferred destinations for expansion of global retail brands.
BUSINESS TRIP We owe everything
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E can claim to the highest because this is the God in whom we believe, whom we worship and love. To Him we owe everything that we are. In His name, we have been baptized. In His name, all our life should be lived. In His name, our earthly life will end and our endless life will begin. We must be grateful to God because we owe everything from Him. Amen. WORD AND LIFE, FR. SAL PUTZU, SDB AND LOUIE M. LACSON Word&Life Publications • teacherlouie1965@yahoo.com
Editor: Gerard S. Ramos • lifestylebusinessmirror@gmail.com
Life
TAYLOR SWIFT SPEAKS AND APPLE LISTENS... »D3
BusinessMirror
Thursday, June 25, 2015
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PACKING FOR A BETTER BUSINESS TRIP M B M T Tribune News Service
aintaining productivity during business trips can test the patience of even the most disciplined professional. Flight delays, meeting prep and limited luggage space frequently combine to push many entrepreneurs to their limits. And with so many people juggling multiple clients from the road as opposed to enjoying the long-term salaried positions of old, that extra time has to be made up somewhere. Hotel administrators are all too aware of this fact. According to Jeff Arman, general manager of Country Inn and Suites by Carlson in Milwaukee, “Business guests not only want to be comfortable during their stay, they expect certain amenities that allow them to be productive on the road.” Free high-speed Internet, equipped business centers and increased electrical outlets in rooms are becoming standard, even with budget hotel chains. Once you’ve booked accommodations with key services included, however, what’s left to be done in order to limit your travel stress? ■ Grooming: Staying polished and pressed on the road is absolutely easier said than done. Chipped nail enamel, wrinkled clothing and last-minute networking events after a lengthy workday can all combine to make even the most coiffed travel connoisseur feel frumpy. Wrinkle-resistant wardrobe items and travel-sized grooming solutions will go a long way toward making you look your best. For instance, Cutex makes nail-polish removal pads for roughly $5 per box that come individually wrapped in moisture-retaining packets. One or two slid discreetly into a slot in the side of your handbag will help you handle minor manicure malfunctions without needing to pack an additional bottle of liquid product. Similarly, four-way nail buffers come in a variety of different widths. Choose the thinnest one available to handle your nail-care needs while still packing light. Substituting flat cotton pads instead of puffs to use with your facial toner is another precision strategy for saving space on grooming supplies. While wrinkle-resistant women’s clothing for business trips has gotten a bit easier to find, ferreting out similar menswear items can still prove problematic. One pants solution that’s popped up on the market is Bluff Works. A basic flat-front pant that comes in a variety of colors including basic khaki, brown and black, it’s designed to transition easily from trail trotting to terrace dining and backpacking to boardroom meetings. The price? About the same as a good pair of conversion pants or dress slacks. (Uniqlo also has a collection of Easy Care tops and bottoms for men and women.—Ed.) If your road warrior wardrobe is comprised of more traditional fabrics and your history with hotel irons leaves something to be desired, you may want to try packing your own travel version. For instance, Rowenta offers a fairly sturdy solution for $50. Weighing in at less than 2 pounds and folding to less than 8 inches, it provides a simple way to freshen your clothes while taking up minimal luggage space. ■ Packing: Staying ready to hit the road at a moment’s notice has been refined to an art form by some, and remains a constant struggle for others. Speaking for myself, I try to stay as prepped for departure as I can while still being able to access necessary items at home with ease. One thing I use religiously to accomplish this is packing cubes. They work as well for organizing dresser drawers as they do for keeping things sorted in your luggage.
So in addition to using them to keep things such as nylons, intimate apparel, camisoles and socks organized, I keep a few prepacked for short business and adventure trips. There are several brands on the market that are affordable for the average person. For example, I’ve seen the TravelWise sets of three go for as low as $20 bucks on Amazon with free shipping. Messenger bags are another smart way to stay at least partially packed for business travel, and are a nice unisex solution. If you have a favorite one you use regularly for commuting and coffee shop workdays, it will already hold all of your extra cords, chargers, notepads and pens. Depending on how much extra space yours provides, you will have additional space for items that don’t fit easily into your wheeled suitcase. An interesting messenger design I ran across recently was the trident bag by ECBC. Wide enough for larger laptops with tech slots located in the exterior portions, it has a decent amount of space in the middle for things such as shaving kits, hanging toiletry bags, extra clothing or even camera gear. It also has hidden straps that convert it to a temporary backpack, in case your business trip takes you to a place in Southeast Asia where taxis often take the form of small motorcycles. ■ Supplies: We all have a few extra things we don’t feel we can live without, but it’s important to make sure those personal faves don’t take up too much of our precious packing space. Personally, I like to carry a reasonably posh pocketbook for evening events and dinner meetings. Since I can rarely justify giving up my tote or computer pack to carry a large one, I’ve made a clutch my go-to solution for years. Packing one in a larger bag makes it easy to plug and play when it comes to combining work with pleasure, and the small size lets you indulge in a more luxurious brand for a fraction of what you’d pay for a fullsized purse. Blu Salt makes one with RFID-blocking card slots, multiple compartments and a detachable cross-body strap for those who prefer to keep both hands free. Snacks are another critical travel supply you don’t want to forget. Stocking something to fill your tummy can keep you from having a hunger meltdown or stopping for a greasy value meal between flights. However, choosing the right snacks is about more than grabbing some of your favorite foods. Choose something too bulky, and you could find yourself short on space. Pack nothing, and you could find yourself stranded with no options during an overnight layover. Portioned packets and resealable food bags can help you stay streamlined. Oatmeal, nuts and even sunflower seeds can be purchased this way, and snack-sized lunch baggies from the grocery store will let you create your own preportioned yummies prior to departure. A fun breakfast option for travelers is Viki’s granola packs. At less than $1.50 per bag, roughly the cost of your average individually priced power bar, they have a comparable calorie count and offer a gluten-free meal replacement that’s devoid of dairy products. Their sleek size makes them super easy to pack, as well. Automobile and train travelers who’d like a beverage alternative to water might want to explore the selection of drink flavors from Sparkling Ice. With zero calories and no added sugar or salt, they offer a fun change for your taste buds. They’re only a buck a bottle, and the narrow shape makes them easier to slide in the side pocket of your day bag.
LIFE
■ Myscha Theriault is a best-selling author and avid traveler. Having just finished a yearlong trip throughout the United States with her husband and Labrador retriever, Theriault is busy planning her next long-term adventure. Readers can keep up with her adventures on Twitter by following @MyschaTheriault.
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The Associated Press
SPIETH hits from the 14th tee during the »thirdJORDAN round of the US Open. AP
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Chambers Bay deserves another shot at hosting the US Open for no other reason than the finish it produced. Jordan Spieth, with a big assist from Dustin Johnson, did more to put this course on the map than views of Puget Sound or the design of Robert Trent Jones Jr.
IVE me a three-shot lead down the stretch of an important golf tournament and I likely would have done exactly as Jordan Spieth did on Sunday at the US Open. Which is to say I, too, would have cut my tee shot on the 17th hole way right into a gnarly lie and later threeputted for double bogey. And that, folks, is where the similarities end. With a threeshot advantage disintegrated, my ball would have come out of the 17th cup and would have been hurled right into Puget Sound. My putter head would have been embedded deep in the greenside soil. And my brain would have been so fired that the inevitable 12 I would post at 18—plus the tirade sequel—would have scarred anyone within 3 miles. Spieth? He swallowed his double and the resulting indigestion and simply proceeded to the 72nd hole with a plan. Relax, focus, make birdie. Par 5, 601 yards? Spieth went driver, 3-wood, casual two-putt and captured his second consecutive major championship. Yes, he needed the golf gods to suplex Dustin Johnson with a haunting three-putt from 12 feet, causing him to lose the US Open, literally, by a couple centimeters. But Johnson’s failure—proof of the pressure that strangles the denouement of most majors—should only heighten Spieth’s accomplishment, not cheapen it. To top it off, Spieth exhaled after his four-day rollercoaster ride with a telling admission: He didn’t have his best stuff. With his game dialed in at Augusta National in April, Spieth shot 18-under par and led wire to wire at the Masters. Without his best stuff, he was still capable of conquering another major, this time on a craggy course with mini-golf ramps all over its bumpy greens. Some of the field’s best players couldn’t help but spend their energy ripping Chambers Bay’s flaws. Spieth? “We got over it,” he said on Sunday. “Someone had to hold the trophy.” At 21, such aplomb is not only abnormal, it might be downright alien. Realistically, golf will fail miserably in its search for the next Tiger Woods, a wunderkind whose popularity will launch the game’s. Woods’s talent, on-course fire, social impact and timing was transcendent in a way that can’t be replicated. But the sport certainly appears to have found its next major star, an engaging and humble Texan who offers plenty to rally around. Spieth’s latest major triumph came with an approach he and his caddie called “free rolling.” It’s the golf equivalent of hakuna matata, a way to always remain present and worry-free. And it’s a catchphrase Under Armour may want to corral ASAP for its inevitable Spieth marketing blitz. After all, the kid’s going to be around awhile.
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‘SPIETH WILL DO FOR NOW’
Based on a recent study of property consultant CBRE, dubbed “How Global is the Business of Retail?,” Manila ranked 13th in the Top 15 target cities globally, with 24 new entrants in the pipeline this year. Other preferred sites in the region are Tokyo, with 63 upcoming retail brands; Singapore, 58; Abu Dhabi, 55; Taipei, 49; Dubai, 45; Hong Kong, 45; Beijing, 34; Doha, 30; and Istanbul, 21. Meanwhile, only a few cities outside of the Asia Pacific are on the list, such as Moscow, with 41 new entrants; Paris, 40; Berlin, 29; Toronto, 25; and Stuttgart, 21. According to the study, retailers from the Americas and the Asia Pacific are mainly keen
on the region’s market. “The Asia-Pacific retail market is gaining more ground as a top spot for expansion of international brands. In the Philippines alone, the demand and interest from the local retail market and the affordable rates drive more investors into the country. When this trend continues, the Asia Pacific can even compete with the bigger EMEA [Europe, Middle East and Africa] and American markets,” said Rick Santos, chairman, founder and CEO of CBRE Philippines. The real-estate consultancy company reported in February that lease rates in Manila are the lowest at $38 per square meter (sq m) when C A
NEW RESORTS WORLD M.I.C.E. FACILITY Resorts World Manila (RWM) continues its aggressive expansion with the opening of its newest Meetings, Incentives, Conventions and Exhibitions (MICE) facility—the Marriott Grand Ball (MGB)—which can accommodate 2,500 people for banquet functions and 4,000 people for a theater setup. The MGB will formally open on July 1 with a special dinner, highlighted by a concert of soul music icon and multi-Grammy award-winner James Ingram. Present during the news conference are (from left) Food and Beverage Operations Asia Pacific Vice President Ralph Frehner, General Manager Bruce Winton and RWM CEO Steven Riley. ALYSA SALEN
AYALA LAND TO OPEN AT LEAST 5 NEW MALLS
NIVERSITY PLACE, Washington—The course that was built for a US Open needs a makeover. And when that’s finished, then it can fix the greens. For all the complaints—a tradition nearly as old as the US Open—the lasting image is the guy holding the trophy. It helps when the winner is a 21-year-old with polished manners and a tenacious short game who made “Grand Slam” a summer topic for only the third time in the last 50 years. Throw in some heartache and it’s an ending that won’t be forgotten. The real mystery is how Johnson’s 5-iron into the 18th green
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didn’t come off that slope instead of leaving a 12-foot eagle putt that was like putting down a luge track. That’s ice, not broccoli. Golf courses don’t always define great players. Sometimes it’s the other way around. Valhalla, for example, cannot be considered on the A-list of championship courses. But it gave us Tiger Woods winning in a playoff for his third straight major, and Rory McIlroy holding off Phil Mickelson, Rickie Fowler and Henrik Stenson in the dark. The greens at Chambers Bay were terrible. Everyone could see that. A few players—Billy Horschel comes to mind—couldn’t wait to say it. But they weren’t that much worse than Pebble Beach in 2010 (“These greens are just awful,” Woods said that year). They were only slightly more dead than those at Shinnecock Hills in 2004.
Go back and watch that 12-foot putt Woods made at Torrey Pines to get into a playoff and try to count the bounces. This is the US Open, not the Immaculate Open. It is meant to be the toughest test in golf, even when it gets a little extreme. The greens should be an easy fix. Poa annua crept into the fescue, which led to Henrik Stenson’s reference that it was like putting on broccoli. Up close, it even looked like broccoli. It was difficult to make putts, though Spieth and Johnson made their share. So did Louis Oosthuizen, with six birdies on the last seven holes (one with a wedge from the fairway). Or maybe they all just got lucky. The overhaul has more to do with an aspect of the US Open that was sadly overlooked this year—the spectators. For 50 years, the only way to see a US Open in the
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Pacific Northwest was on television. And once the fans got onto the course, they were so far away from the action that the players looked about as big as they once did on a 19-inch TV screen with a knob to change the channels. Adding grandstands isn’t the answer. At midday on Saturday, the 18th bleachers already were filled and the line was nearly 50 yards long, and not moving. Sounds like a fun way to spend the afternoon at a US Open. Phil Mickelson’s wife was standing near the first tee in the opening round. She looked down the fairway and didn’t see fans on either side. The 18th fairway was on the left. A massive dune was on the right. “Where am I supposed to go?” she inquired. Back to the house would have been the most
| THURSDAY, JUNE 25, 2015 mirror_sports@yahoo.com.ph sports@businessmirror.com.ph Editor: Jun Lomibao
practical answer. The eighth fairway had no room on either side for spectators. For a course that was built with hopes of landing a US Open, there was no reason it couldn’t have cut viewing areas through the dunes without risking spectator safety. It’s worth going back to Chambers Bay no matter who won. The US Golf Association (USGA) wants to move its championship around the country. The Pacific Northwest had to wait 120 years. It’s also important for the US Open to be held on a public course every now and then, so that ticks two boxes. But too many majors are trending toward made-for-TV events (Kiawah Island in 2012 and Whistling Straits this summer, both sites for the Professional Golfers’ Association Championship, are examples of that). The atmosphere only adds
BusinessMirror
to the event. What a shame for someone who qualifies for the US Open, and his family or friends can’t walk the whole way around with him. It sounds minor. It’s a big deal. And it should be fixed if the US Open ever returns to Chambers Bay. And if it does, golf fans will recall Spieth going birdie-double bogey-birdie to capture the second leg of the Grand Slam. They will recall Johnson having a 12-foot putt to win and then missing a 4-foot putt to lose, all in a span of 48 seconds. They probably won’t think of Chambers Bay as the course where players lost respect for the USGA because the greens weren’t pure.
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ROPERTY developer Ayala Land Inc. is planning to open at least five new shopping malls in the next few years, in line with its goal of booking a net income of P40 billion by 2020. Ayala Land Senior Vice President Junie H. Jalandoni said these malls will be in Santa Rosa, Laguna; Manila Bay area; Circuit Makati; and Pasig City. He said it will also open another one next to the TriNoma mall in Quezon City in 2017. “We like growing our mall business because it’s anchored on consumer spending…. From 1.2 million square meters of gross leasable area, we plan to triple this to 3.8 million square me meters over the next couple of years,” Ja Jalandoni said during an investors’ conference organized by the Bank of the Philippine Islands. Ayala Land currently has the Glorietta
PESO EXCHANGE RATES ■ US 45.0260
JALANDONI: “We like growing our mall business, because it’s anchored on consumer spending….”
and Greenbelt malls in Makati, aside from those in Quezon City, Alabang, Cebu, Davao, Cagayan de Oro, Subic, Bacolod, Pampanga and Iloilo City. Apart from expanding its mall network, Jalandoni said the company is expanding its business-process outsourcing (BPO) portfolio. “For us, we continue to grow our BPO business because of the growth of the BPO sector. We will build more offices....
We actually have land bank already for all of our BPO expansion plans, so all we have to do is actually execute. We have locations there in Metro Manila and all over the country,” he said. Jalandoni said they aim to triple in the next five years the office portfolio catering mostly to the BPO market, from 600,000 sq m to 1.8 million sq m of gross area. “Aside from tourism, we’re actually very bullish about the BPO industry.... It’s one of the economic drivers of the country,” he added. As part of Ayala Land’s “2020-2040 Plan,” Jalandoni said that the property developer is also expanding its new businesses, like hospitals, retailing and convenience stores. Under the plan, he said, Ayala Land targets to post a net income of P40 billion by 2020 at an annual growth rate of 20 percent. PNA
Anticipated flood of Chinese high rollers not materializing
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N February 2014 Melco Crown Entertainment Ltd. Cochairman James Packer described the construction of the City of Dreams casino in Manila as a “bet on China.” Sixteen months on, the gamble hasn’t paid off. Instead, the anticipated flood of high rollers from China to Manila’s three casino resorts has so far failed to materialize, and the market value of operators, like Melco Crown Philippines Resorts Corp. and Bloomberry Resorts Corp., has been shredded as investors fled, making Philippine casino stocks among the world’s worst performers this year. Profits will tumble 56 percent across the industry in
2016, JPMorgan Chase & Co. forecast this week. “ T he c ha in react ion f rom Macau hit everyone,” said Noel Reyes, chief investment officer at Security Bank Corp., which manages the best-performing Philippine equity fund in the past year. “Expectations VIP players will come in large numbers didn’t happen. The stocks have fallen quite significantly but not everyone is rushing back in, and there’s no clear light at the end of the tunnel.” Casino shares have crashed, even as the benchmark Philippine Stock Exchange Index has climbed 4.4 percent this year, peaking at an C A
■ JAPAN 0.3649 ■ UK 71.2581 ■ HK 5.8089 ■ CHINA 7.2512 ■ SINGAPORE 33.7021 ■ AUSTRALIA 34.8849 ■ EU 51.0685 ■ SAUDI ARABIA 12.0069 Source: BSP (23 June 2015)