San Miguel profit surges on one-time gains
Thomson Financial
First Posted 03:13:00 05/16/2008
MANILA, Philippines—Beverage and food conglomerate San Miguel Corp. said Thursday its net income almost quadrupled to P11 billion in the first quarter from the same period last year, boosted by one-time gains on sale of investments.
The company did not give a 2007 comparative figure, but said that excluding one-time gains, recurring net income more than doubled to P4.1 billion.
Consolidated revenue grew 11 percent to P39.2 billion.
Encouraged by its first-quarter performance, San Miguel gave an upbeat outlook for the full year.
"For 2008, San Miguel expects another year of positive growth driven by strong consumer demand for its brand and a more focused industry-specific growth strategy," it said in a statement.
However, rising commodity and fuel prices require "vigilant management of efficiencies and cost," it said.
San Miguel will pursue a separate stock listing for its packaging operation and consolidate its food businesses for another stock offering. Last Monday, it floated its domestic beer unit.
The initial public offering of flagship San Miguel Brewery Inc. raised P6.2 billion. The IPO was priced at the low end of an indicative range of P8-11 per share following the recent turmoil in financial markets.
San Miguel was previously looking to diversify into energy, mining and infrastructure. But company president Ramon Ang said Monday the group was not rushing to acquire new businesses even though it has plenty of cash following the recent sale of some assets.
Ang said there was nothing interesting for San Miguel to acquire at present, particularly in the power sector.
Initial attempts by San Miguel to enter that sector were all unsuccessful. A San Miguel-led consortium in December lost the bidding for the 25-year concession to operate the national power grid to a Philippine-Chinese group.
San Miguel also lost in last year's bidding for 60 percent of geothermal power producer PNOC Energy Development Corp.
San Miguel sold assets in Australia last year, including its dairy and juice businesses which were housed under National Foods Ltd. It also sold its entire 65-percent stake in Coca-Cola's Philippine bottler.
San Miguel's Class A shares, limited to Filipinos, rose 1.2 percent to P44.00 on Thursday ahead of the results. Its Class B shares, open to all, closed flat at P46.50. With editing by INQUIRER.net
($1 = P42.80)
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