Ayala profit up 22%

Conglomerate Ayala Corp. last year grew its net profit by 22 percent to P12.8 billion, driven by record-high earnings from its real estate and banking businesses.

To sustain its growth trajectory, the Ayala group has earmarked nearly P190 billion in capital expenditures this year for real estate, banking, telecommunications and water businesses, as well as to ramp up its new businesses. The budget is 58 percent larger than last year’s capital outlay of P120 billion.

Taking out non-recurring items last year, particularly the impact of the accelerated depreciation from its telco’s network transformation initiative, Ayala’s core net income amounted to P14.8 billion—a 28-percent improvement from that of the previous year.

“We are encouraged by the strong performance across our business units as they reap the benefits of the aggressive growth strategies started a few years back. In turn, we have also been able to optimize earnings and value at the parent level as we continued to rebalance our portfolio and adjusted our ownership, particularly in our banking and water units, over the past year,” Ayala president and chief operating officer Fernando Zobel de Ayala said in a statement. “We are optimistic we can sustain double-digit earnings growth through 2014.”

Ayala’s equity earnings expanded by 23 percent last year to P17.6 billion.

The group’s business process outsourcing unit, LiveIt Investments Ltd., posted a net income of $1.7 million, an improvement of $15.8 million over the previous year’s losses. Its share of revenues reached a record $391 mil li    on, up by 14 percent from the previous year, while share of cash flow (based on earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization or Ebitda) grew by 31 percent to $38 million.

Also, Ayala Land’s net income grew by 30 percent to a record P11.7 billion on the back of double-digit revenue growth and stable margins across its business segments.

Bank of the Philippine Island boosted net profit by 15 percent to a record P18.8 billion, driven by higher interest income on the back of a 21-percent growth in the bank’s loan portfolio.

Globe posted a 28-percent decline in net income to P4.96 billion due to accelerated depreciation charges arising from its network transformation initiative, but core earnings rose by 13 percent to P11.6 billion.

Manila Water’s net income expanded by 5 percent to P5.8 billion, driven by higher billed volume in the east zone and increased contribution from new businesses.

Integrated Microelectronics nearly doubled its net income to $10.5 million after it expanded its business in Europe and the Philippines.

At the parent company level, Ayala ended the year with a gross debt of P70.9 billion and cash of P25.5 billion. Net debt to equity ratio stood at 0.32, and consolidated net debt to equity ratio was at 0.98.  Doris C. Dumlao

Originally posted: 2:42 pm | Tuesday, March 11th, 2014