Ayala group net hits P37.8B

The country’s oldest business house, Ayala Corp., posted P37.8 billion in first semester net profit, more than double that of the previous year, as gains from its education business and partial divestment of thermal assets added to higher earnings from its banking, telecommunication and real estate businesses.

In the first semester of 2018, Ayala’s net profit was at P16.1 billion.

Alongside the solid growth of its banking, telecommunications, and real estate units, Ayala unlocked gains from other emerging businesses. Equity earnings from its business units, which include divestment gains from the merger of AC Education with the Yuchengco group’s iPeople and partial divestment of AC Energy’s thermal assets, doubled to P41.7 billion in the first semester.

“Our first-half results reflect the strength of our core holdings in real estate, banking, and telecommunications. This was complemented by the value realization initiatives in our energy business,” Ayala president and COO Fernando Zobel de Ayala said. “We are pleased with the rapid growth of AC Energy, its growing contribution to our overall profitability, and the regular value realization exercises to deliver investment returns to Ayala,” he noted.

AC Energy’s net profit reached P23.2 billion in the first half, up from only P2.1 billion a year ago.
As part of its strategy to rebalance its generation portfolio as it aims to grow its renewable energy assets, AC Energy signed last month a binding agreement with Power Partners for the transfer of AC Energy’s indirect ownership interest in the 4x135MW coal-fired power project in GNPower Kauswagan in Lanao del Norte in favor of Power Partners.

“Thermal asset sale will be recurring. It’s part of business model. We had that last year also, and we expect to always dispose a part of our developments to raise capital. AC Energy has only been allocated $800 million of capital which has all been invested. So they need to recycle capital … The model is to build greenfield then do partial sale to raise capital to build next one,” AC chief financial officer Teodoro Limcaoco said in a text message.

Meanwhile, macropolitical risks, sectoral headwinds, and component supply tightness dragged AC Industrials’ performance in the first half to a net loss of P510 million. —DORIS DUMLAO-ABADILLA