MANILA, Philippines—Food and beverage conglomerate San Miguel Corp., one of the Philippines' largest companies, said its net profit for the nine months to September was boosted by asset sales as it continues to diversify.

Net profit as of September reached P57 billion pesos ($1.20 billion), it said in a statement without giving a comparative figure.

"Before one-off items, net income rose 6.0 percent year-on-year to P7.61 billion," it added without elaborating.

San Miguel, a beverage, food processing and packaging combine, has been selling assets to finance its move into higher-margin businesses, mainly heavy industries.

The company had earlier sold 43.25 percent of its domestic beer unit stake to Japanese brewer Kirin for P50.7 billion.

It had said it was also going to sell 49 percent of its food processing unit and its liquor business to raise more money for other businesses, without giving a specific time frame.

The conglomerate said its consolidated revenues for the first nine months grew 4.0 percent from a year earlier to P126.5 billion while operating profit rose 12.0 percent to P13.1 billion.

Unit San Miguel Brewery posted five percent rises in operating income and revenues, to P11.3 billion and P37 billion respectively, with cost management and stable raw material prices giving a lift "after a difficult first three months," it added.

San Miguel said it "expects to further improve volumes and consumption for the rest of 2009."