Living the Legacy, Above All Integrity.

By: Mrs. Jesus Puyat-Concepcion, Chairman & President, Loyola Plans Consolidated, Inc.

The Loyola companies are essentially service corporations engaged in financial services, memorial services and leisure and we try to deliver these services in the most personal caring and satisfactory manner. Being in service naturally, we are here to help our planholders, and our own people. For forty years, we have not failed to address the needs of our planholders most especially the ones who are in most need. There is a corporate-wide genuine desire to help people.

The Promise

Forty years ago, my father, the late Sen. Gil J. Puyat Sr., established Loyola Plans Consolidated Inc., with the vision of helping the Filipinos to prepare for the inevitable. In the course of his political career, many have sought financial assistance to help them get through the death of a loved one. It is because of his desire to dignify death, and ease the financial burden. He wanted Filipinos to save for the future and our product was in reality some form of forced savings. I saw these things personally and I fully understand why we are in this business.

The Beginning

I grew up in a business-oriented family and I married into another similarly inclined. For about 10 years after my marriage, I was a busy wife and mother of 5 children. However, my first business experience after my BA degree from the University of the Philippines was in real estate development, noteworthy of which was Virra Mall in Greenhills. My experience with real estate was very instrumental in developing my management and leadership capabilities. It also opened my mind and gave me the ability to deal with people within the different levels of the organization and to value each and every input given by my team members.

At the Helm

Our Company, operates on the core values established by my father, and that is “Above All Integrity”. For forty years now, it has guided us and pointed us to the right direction. Loyola Plans has been able to sustain 40 years of unbroken service delivery, which could be traced back to the promise of my father to our very first clients and it is precisely because of that promise that we made a brave but difficult and most painful decision to stop selling open-ended plans. It took our company a lot of fiscal discipline and financial management to recover lost ground. Thankfully, by the time the crisis in the pre-need industry happened, we had been able to regain market share to build a substantial trust fund, and as we sold plans, we never lost sight of the time when we would deliver the contracted obligations.

I can’t see myself as having the singular task of decision making in our company. I like to listen and allow my executives and managers a lot of leeway for them to do things and think in a way that brings out innate skills and other good traits. I appreciate the variety of skills and other qualities that we have discovered this way. On the other hand, giving them this chance also exposes traits and attitudes, which may need further improvement.

I believe that our employees and the members of our sales force are composed of talented individuals operating under a common goal of providing a unique Filipino product that provides not only for basic needs but an opportunity to improve one’s life. As such, we provide our people with the resources needed to make them succeed. Interviews, training, full back-line support and a very marketable product that answers to the people’s very basic needs. Our management team is made up of capable individuals who work as one towards the achievement of the company’s goals in general and towards the realization of each and every planholder’s trust and expectation with regard to the plans they bought.

I believe that all our efforts have served Loyola Plans Consolidated Inc. well. We are among the market leaders with well known products. Over the years, Loyola has improved its operations and has continued to innovate its products to answer the needs of its client/planholders.

Success is having attained the level of excellence in your chosen field. But to be truly successful, one must also be happy with one’s self, the family, the workplace and the community. We, at the Loyola, firmly believe that caring for the people, maintaining the trust they bestowed on us, and delivering our promises to them, is the very epitome of our motto “Above All Integrity.”

For the future, I’d really look forward to clearer rules and guidelines for any industry player. We sell long-term contracts that can run from 10 years to a much longer period. Truth is, some of the contracts we sold in the 1960s are still alive. However, when changes are proposed that may affect currently paying plans, that is devastating. It can result in unrecoverable losses for the company, it can result in inferior financial returns for the planholder’s contribution and eventually our products will not be that marketable anymore.

In Loyola, we follow the rules, so we look forward to seeing rules that will help the industry thrive and grow and allow us to a continue serving our mass-based planholders.