Gokongwei-led JG Summit Holdings, Inc., one of the leading Philippine conglomerates, reported that its first quarter 2024 core net income soared 214 percent to P12.6 billion from P4.4 billion in the same period last year.
In a disclosure to the Philippine Stock Exchange, the firm said this was on the back of the strong results of its food, real estate, and air transport businesses, which were further boosted by the gains it realized from its bank merger.
Net income for the first quarter of 2024 ended at P11.0 billion, up 120 percent from P5 billion in the same period last year, already more than half of JGS’ 2023 full-year results.
“We kicked off 2024 with sustained improvements across our businesses, seeing robust sales volumes in our petrochemical and food businesses, as well as strong demand for air travel, leisure, and hospitality services,” said JGS President and CEO Lance Y. Gokongwei.
According to Gokongwei, margins have been buoyed by a combination of volume growth, managed input costs, and operating leverage. The conglomerate also begun seeing green shoots in its petrochemicals arm as value realization has begun for its commercial and operational initiatives.
“Looking ahead, we continue to work on growing our airline’s capacity to serve the gradual uptick in demand, driving volume-based growth in our food and beverage business, sustaining the momentum in our property unit, and accelerating the transformation program of our petrochemicals arm.
“We will also continue to support our ecosystem plays, which are on the path to attaining scale via customer acquisition and new product launches,” Gokongwei added.
Propelling its robust profitability was the 18 percent growth in consolidated revenues to P96.7 billion in the first quarter of 2024 from P82.3 billion in January to March 2023 with all its subsidiaries showing continued topline expansion.
At the forefront of this was the higher plant utilization of the conglomerate’s petrochemical unit along with the steep upswing of its airline’s international operations.
The increased capacity and improved efficiency of its airline, the record-breaking EBITDA of its property arm, and the growing volumes and sustained margin uplift of its food and beverage business set the baseline for the growth of JGS’ core net income.
This was supplemented by the P7.9 billion gain from the merger of the Bank of the Philippine Islands and Robinsons Bank, which became effective at the start of 2024.
Even without the merger gains, the solid performance of its listed units translated to a 16 percent growth in the group’s consolidated core profits. This is despite the lower foreign exchange (FX) gains and higher mark-to-market (MTM) losses this quarter.
JGS expects to receive dividends amounting to P9.9 billion in the second quarter of 2024. This is an 8 percent increase from the same period last year (SPLY) as JGS anticipates to collect higher total dividends from its listed food and property subsidiaries in the coming quarters, offsetting the absence of PLDT’s 2023 special dividends.