Ethanol boosts Roxas Holdings’ earnings

Sugar firm Roxas Holdings Inc. grew its net profit in the nine-month period ending June by 80 percent year-on-year to P455 million, significantly due to higher income from ethanol.

Lower interest expense and an increase in equity income of an affiliate, Hawaiian-Philippine Co., likewise contributed to this increase in net profit, RHI chair Pedro Roxas said in a press statement.

“Our ethanol plant is now fully operational and has produced 25.6 million liters of ethanol for the past nine months compared to only 4.7 million liters for the same period last year. We are looking to even better performance for our ethanol plant in the coming fiscal year,” Roxas said.

Despite the company’s lower sugar production this year due to operational challenges, sugar remained the top contributor to the group’s net income, RHI president Renato Valencia said. “We are now making major investments in off-season repairs and improvements in our facilities to ensure better recoveries and efficiencies for the coming crop year to better serve the needs of our planter-partners.”

Revenues for the first nine months of the fiscal year beginning October rose by 59 percent year-on-year to P6.3 billion while cash flow based on earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization hit P1.28 billion, up by 6 percent from the previous year.

RHI declared a dividend of P0.12 per share payable on Sept. 15 for stockholders as of Aug. 22.