Meralco is top grosser; Mirant remains most profitable firm

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) yesterday released its 2001 edition of the Philippines’ top 5,000 corporations.

The top 5,000 corporate report is a joint venture between the SEC and credit rating agency Credit Information Bureau, Inc.

Released yesterday by the SEC, the top 10 corporations list is part of the corporate watchdog agency’s annual listing of the largest 5,000 corporations in terms of sales, profitability, assets and liabilities. For this year, the list was made up of four information technology firms, three major oil companies, one telecommunications firm, one multinational food and beverage firm, and one power distributor.

The SEC’s top 10 grossers for 2001 were Manila Electric Co., the country’s biggest power distributing firm with sales of P130.73 billion, Pilipinas Shell Petroleum Corp., Philippines’ second largest oil refiner (P96.07 billion), Petron Corp. (P88.54 billion), Baguio-based chip maker Texas Instruments Inc. (P81.04 billion), Japan’s Fujitsu Computer Products Corp. of the Phils. (P58.91 billion), Caltex (P58.29 billion), Toshiba Information Equipment Phils. Inc. (P53.9 billion), Nestle Phils. Inc. (P48.53 billion), telecommunications giant Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. (P46.06 billion) and Winston Infocomm (Phils.) Corp. (P42.09 billion).

Ousted from the list were state-run power firm National Power Corp. and food and beverage giant San Miguel Corp. which skidded to 11th spot as sales dropped to P39.73 billion.

In terms of profitability, Mirant (Phils.) Corp., the country’s largest private power producer, was the biggest moneymaker with its net income growing 35.64 percent to P11.57 billion. Its two subsidiaries – Mirant Pagbilao Corp. and Mirant Sual Corp. landed in second and third spots as profits increased to P7.8 billion and P6.65 billion, respectively.