Ayala income surged in ’14 by 46% to P19B

MANILA, Philippines–Conglomerate Ayala Corp. grew its net profit last year by 46 percent to P18.6 billion on robust earnings from its real estate, telecommunications and electronics manufacturing units alongside a one-time gain from an asset sale.

At the parent level, Ayala has set aside P21 billion in capital spending this 2015 to fund its growing pipeline of power generation and transport infrastructure projects.

On last year’s results, earnings were boosted by a net gain from the sale of its business process outsourcing asset, Ayala disclosed to the Philippine Stock Exchange on Tuesday.

Without the impact of the accelerated depreciation from its telecommunications unit’s network transformation initiative the previous year, Ayala said its core net income actually grew by 25 percent in 2014.

Ayala cited strong equity earnings contribution from its business units, which reached P24.9 billion, 42 percent higher than the level a year ago.

This was attributed to  equity earnings from Ayala Land Inc. which rose by 28 percent alongside the significant improvement in the contributions of Globe Telecom Inc., which more than doubled. The contribution from Integrated Micro-Electronics Inc. expanded threefold.

In addition, the conglomerate booked a P1.8-billion net divestment gain from Stream Global Services Inc.

“We are very pleased with the performance of our business units as they continue to benefit from the aggressive growth strategy they executed a few years ago,” Ayala president and chief operating officer Fernando Zobel de Ayala said.

“As our business units sustain their growth momentum and the overall business environment continues to be encouraging, we are optimistic we can achieve our net income target of P20 billion this year, a year ahead of the plan,” he added.