RHI profit up by 163%

Roxas Holdings Inc.  said its profit for the quarter ending December 2013 soared by 163 percent year-on-year to P90 million on the back of higher sugar sales and the turnaround of its bioethanol business.

“We were able to sell carry-over inventory of 500,000 50-kilogram bags of refined sugar which boosted our sales by about P1 billion,” RHI chair Pedro Roxas said in a statement.

The fourth quarter of each calendar year, October to December, is the first quarter in RHI’s fiscal year which ends in September.

RHI president Renato Valencia said sugar remained the main net income contributor, with profit of P67 million, up  from P66 million a year ago.

“Ethanol’s net income for the quarter is now positive, albeit small compared to previous year’s losses of P41 million,” Valencia said.

Roxol Bioenergy Corp. sold five million liters of ethanol for the first quarter of crop year 2014 compared to only 668,000 liters in the same period last year.

Both executives stressed that the first quarter was typically a slow period for the industry as cane deliveries and sugar recovery were just starting to scale up. As such, they added that the favorable first quarter performance would bode well for the rest of the year.

Doris C. Dumlao