By James A. Loyola
JG Summit Holdings, Inc. reported a 54 percent surge in consolidated net income for the first quarter of 2019 to P7.4 billion – a significant recovery from the P4.8 billion earnings in the same period last year.
JG Summit President and Chief Executive Officer Lance Y. Gokongwei
In a disclosure to the Philippine Stock Exchange, the firm said this was mainly driven by our food, air transport, and property businesses, which all saw their core earnings after taxes growing at a consistent pace of 28 percent year-on-year.
However, this was largely offset by Petrochem’s margin contraction, leaving the group’s consolidated core net income after taxes flattish at P6.2 billion for the quarter.
Mark-to-market and hedging gains along with significantly lower forex losses from the parent’s balance sheet and Cebu Pacific (CEB) gave a further boost to JGS’ consolidated profits.
The group’s consolidated revenues rose 9 percent to P76.3 billion in the first quarter of 2019 primarily due to the recovery in Universal Robina Corporation’s Philippine business,
The acceleration in CEB’s topline performance due to the double-digit increase across all its revenue sources, the sustained growth momentum of both RLC and RBank; and the higher equity earnings of UIC and Meralco, coupled with higher dividends received from PLDT.
“Coming from a very challenging 2018, we are delighted to start the year stronger with the good execution of the strategic initiatives we have set in place,” JG Summit President and Chief Executive Officer Lance Y. Gokongwei said.
He added that, “we are also benefitting from a more favorable macroeconomic environment with better consumer sentiment driving the growth of our core businesses in food, real estate and airline.”
URC’s sales grew 9 percent to P33.3 billion but net income was only up by 3 percent to P3.0 billion mainly because of lower foreign exchange gains.
Robinsons Land continues to grow its profit by double-digits despite the slight deceleration in topline while CEB’snet income significantly expanded by 138 percent to P3.4 billion as a result of operational efficiencies.
JG Petrochem’s revenues fell 8 percent to P9.6 billion as the 12 percent drop in average selling prices more than offset the 4 percent volume growth.
Robinsons Bank Corporation’s net income fell 58 percent to P42.5 million while equity in net earnings of associated companies and joint ventures increased by 11 percent to P2.7 billion.