Aboitiz holding company posts P17.7-B net profit

Conglomerate Aboitiz Equity Ventures chalked up P17.7 billion in net profit last year, down 4 percent from the previous year, due to a decline in earnings contribution from its banking business alongside some non-recurring loss.

Excluding one-off items, AEV’s core net income rose by 2 percent to P18.3 billion last year. The company incurred a non-recurring loss of P602 million—versus the gain of P436 million in 2014—mainly due to the mark-to-market revaluation of the dollar-denominated assets and liabilities of the power unit.

For the fourth quarter alone, AEV’s net profit rose by 40 percent year-on-year to P5.8 billion, the conglomerate reported to the Philippine Stock Exchange yesterday.

For the full year, the flagship power business accounted for 73 percent of earnings, followed by the banking and financial services with a share of 14 percent. Food, land and infrastructure units contributed 9 percent, 3 percent and 1 percent, respectively.

Aboitiz Power Corp.’s income contribution to AEV increased by 6 percent to P13.5 billion for the full year. Overall, this unit posted a 5-percent rise in net profit to P17.6 billion. Earnings from the power generation business—its bread and butter accounting for 79 percent of total—boosted earnings contribution by 3 percent to P13.9 billion.

For the full year 2015, Aboitiz Power’s attributable net generation rose 11 percent to 12,550 gigawatt-hour (GWh), as electricity sold through bilateral contracts, which made up 91 percent of total energy sold during the period, expanded by 18 percent to 11,383 GWh. On the other hand, spot market sales decreased by 28 percent to 1,168 GWh.

Earnings from the power distribution group for full-year 2015 increased by 19 percent to P3.8 billion as attributable electricity sales increased by 6 percent to 4,759 GWh. Energy sales grew across all customer segments as well as the full-year contributions from LiMA EnerZone, which was acquired last year.

Earnings contribution from banking unit Union Bank of the Philippines decreased by 22 percent year-on-year to P2.5 billion. Strong growth in recurring net income partially offset the absence of trading gains, resulting in full year 2015 earnings of Union Bank falling to P5.3 billion from P6.8 billion the previous year. This translated to a return on average equity and return on average assets of 10.2 percent and 1.2 percent, respectively.