Aboitiz Equity boosts capex to P104.6B for 2025
MANILA, Philippines — Aboitiz Equity Ventures Inc. (AEV) will raise its capital expenditure this year by 37 percent mostly to expand its power segment, its main income driver, while developing its other businesses.
The conglomerate on Monday said it had earmarked P104.6 billion in capital outlays, P78.1 billion of which would go to Aboitiz Power Corp.
Last year, the segment contributed P18 billion to AEV’s bottom line, representing a 4-percent gain due to higher energy sales.
Aboitiz Infra Capital Inc., meanwhile, will get P16.6 billion for the expansion of its economic estates and ongoing tower acquisitions, AEV chief financial officer Jose Emmanuel Hilado said during the group’s recent earnings call.
According to Hilado, banking under Union Bank of the Philippines will spend P3.7 billion to enhance its digital infrastructure.
A total of P3.6 billion will be set aside for Aboitiz Food Holdings Inc., which will refurbish swine farms and develop greenfield farms for research and development.
Aboitiz Land Corp. will get P2.5 billion of the budget pie to expand across the country.
“We’ll look to sustain our current initiatives, which will be to strengthen our position in the key markets we’re already present [in]: Central Luzon, South Luzon and Vis-Min (Visayas and Mindanao),” Aboitiz Land CEO Rafael Fernandez de Mesa said during the briefing.
Fernandez de Mesa officially began his tenure as head of the group’s real estate arm on Jan. 1, succeeding David Rafael.
READ: Aboitiz Group net income down 23% in 2024
Beverage unit
Meanwhile, the parent firm will spend around P200 million this year, or well below the P34.21 billion budget in 2024 that was used to acquire Coca-Cola Europacific Aboitiz Philippines Inc. (CCEAP).
Last year, CCEAP, formerly Coca-Cola Beverages Philippines Inc., contributed P1.6 billion to the P5.9-billion total earnings of Aboitiz Foods.
“The investment in [CCEAP] performed beyond our expectation,” Hilado said. “Moving forward, we increase our expectation for volume growth.”
The beverage giant in 2024 saw an 11.8-percent volume growth, which the group hopes to surpass this year to propel CCEAP’s earnings to a record high.
One-time gains recognized in 2023, as well as impairment losses in its cement investment, pulled down the earnings of AEV last year by 23 percent to P18.1 billion.
Without P7.4 billion worth of nonrecurring items, the net income of the group would have climbed by 15 percent to P25.5 billion. INQ
