Roxas Holdings posts P473-M profit

MANILA, Philippines - Listed sugar miller Roxas Holdings Inc. (RHI) posted a lower year-on-year net income after tax of P473 million for its fiscal year ending in September despite lower operating costs.

For fiscal year ending September 2012,the company reported a net income after tax of P667 million, its highest in 85 years. 

The company disclosed to the local bourse yesterday that its earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) reached P1.72 billion ending its fiscal year, up from P1.6 billion year-on-year.

Net income before tax reached P715 million.

RHI president and CEO Renato C. Valencia said sugar production continues to be the main income driver for the group.

RHI is an integrated sugar milling business, exercising full management of Central Azucarera Don Pedro, Inc., in Nasugbu, Batangas, as well as Central Azucarera de la Carlota, Inc., and Roxol Bionergy Corp. In La Carlota, Negros Occidental.

It also holds a 45 percent interest in sugar miller Hawaiian-Philippine Company in Negros occidental.

RHI chairman Pedro E. Roxas said that during the period, the company incurred lower operating expenses, lower financing costs, and reduced net operating losses for Roxol “which became significantly profitable during the last quarter of fiscal year 2013.”

Valencia said Roxol, which produces biethanol, incurred losses of P38.9 million last year but is expected to be profitable in the next fiscal year.

The company also announced the appointments of key officers who will assume their new positions beginning in January.

These are: Arcadio Lozada, Jr. as president & COO of Central Azucarera Don Pedro and, concurrently, group EVP for operations; Ferdinand Joseph T. Escobal as SVP for corporate planning, research, communications, and CSR; and Felixberto T. Monasterio as VP for feedstock supply, and concurrently, group deputy head for marketing & trading.

The company describes Lozada as an industry veteran who worked with various sugar organizations locally and abroad.

Escobal is described as a seasoned corporate planning and communications professional who “has institutionalized best practice strengths-based strategic thinking for leading organizations in the  ASEAN region.”

Monasterio is a former banker and an agribusiness specialist who served as Executive Director of the Sugar Master Plan Foundation, Inc.