GMA Network first-half profit down 4%

GMA Network reported a 4-percent decline in its first-half profit to P1.014 billion from year-ago level mainly due to a weak first quarter performance.

In the second quarter, however, the network registered a 17-percent increase in net income to P626 million from the level in the same period last year.

The company expects to hit a profit of P2 billion this year, with the anticipated surge in election-related “advocacy” placements.

In the meantime, a cloud of doubt has been cast over the planned merger between Manuel V. Pangilinan’s TV5 network and GMA Network, whose chairman revealed that several deal-breaker issues remained unresolved.

When asked about the progress of negotiations for the deal, GMA chairman Felipe L. Gozon said several issues still needed to be sorted out.

“Let’s just wait and see how this will develop. There’s an implication that if I say talks are progressing, it will arrive to a successful conclusion,” he told reporters on Tuesday.

“In all honesty, I cannot say that this transaction will end up with a successful conclusion,” he said.

While declining to reveal details, Gozon, who represents one of three families that control GMA, said talks with the Pangilinan group were now more than just the price.

“In a transaction as big and as complex as this, there will always be issues. Not all issues have been resolved yet,” he said.

Like Pangilinan, he said if a deal was not reached within the year, the transaction would not likely push through at all.

The latest talks are Pangilinan’s second attempt to take over GMA. He first tried to buy the company before its initial public offering (IPO) in 2007.

Gozon stressed that he and his partners, the Duavit and Jimenez families, were in no hurry to sell the company, if at all.

“We don’t go out in the market and sell GMA. There are just suitors and we are just responding,” he said. Staying in GMA, Gozon said, would make him just as happy, given how profitable the company is.