The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) finally forged a deal with SM Group nearly a year after the corporate regulator came out with a plan to put up satellite offices in the latter’s shopping malls.

SEC Chairman Teresita Herbosa and SM Supermalls President Annie Garcia just recently signed a memorandum of agreement for the establishment of a SEC satellite office in SM City Manila which is scheduled to open at the end of this month.

The SEC satellite office will offer frontline services of the commission including filing of the General Information Sheets and Audited Financial Statements as well as Articles of Incorporation (AOI) and any amendments.

As part of the deal, SEC will also be setting up another satellite office in SM North Edsa in Quezon City and negotiations are now underway for the first satellite provincial office preferably in Cagayan Valley through SM City Cauayan in Isabela.

“I hope that we could finalize everything within the year and hopefully this will be the start of a strong and long partnership with SM so that the time will come when the SEC is present in all SM malls,” Herbosa said.

Herbosa said their decision to open a satellite office stemmed from the success enjoyed by other government offices that have already set up satellite offices in the malls.

She also said that the limited number extension offices of the SEC in various parts of the country has also been a source of hardships for many companies because they have to travel far just to file their annual requirements to the SEC.

“You know we already experienced putting up extension offices in major cities only and so other areas are not covered and even in Metro Manila. Can you imagine the traffic that you have to go through to go to our main office in EDSA Mandaluyong and our building is not that new anymore, you cannot have so many people there. And the satellite offices is the answer,” she said.

Herbosa specified that they chose SM as their satellite office in Manila because of its strategic location to many of the businesses in the area.

Just like the other government offices, SEC will be using the mall space in SM for free.  Garcia, for her part, said SM is honored to be a partner of SEC in the performance of its mandate to serve businesses and organizations in the country.

“We have always been supportive of businesses. They are our partners and we want to make sure that we give them all the opportunities to succeed. This is just one way of expressing that support,” Garcia said. As of now, SEC only has one satellite station which is located in ALI Mall, Cubao.

Herbosa said in an earlier interview that for this year alone, the Commission is targeting to build five new satellite stations, some of which will be situated in provinces.