Metro Pacific core income up 18% to P8.5 B

MANILA, Philippines - Infrastructure conglomerate Metro Pacific Investments Corp. (MPIC) said its core net income grew above expectation last year, rising nearly a fifth behind robust revenue growth across all businesses.

MPIC said core net income went up 18 percent to P8.5 billion last year from P7.2 billion in 2013 as each of its four main businesses delivered strong growth despite regulatory challenges.

MPIC’s core net income guidance for full year 2014 was pegged at P8 billion.

“The strong results for the year reflect continuing improvements in service levels as well as efficiency and financing gains at our operating companies. This progress in profitability is encouraging despite a difficult regulatory environment,” MPIC chairman Manuel V. Pangilinan said.

MPIC attributed the rise in the group’s core net income mainly to robust earnings growth at Metro Pacific Tollways Corp. arising from strong traffic growth and increased shareholding in Manila North Tollways Corp. as well as growth at Maynilad Water Services Inc. and Manila Electric Co. due to higher volumes sold.

The conglomerate also said strong organic growth and the benefit from new investments in the hospital group contributed to the earnings jump.

Maynilad accounted for P4.4 billion or 43 percent of the company’s net operating income while Meralco contributed P3 billion or 30 percent of total.

MPIC’s toll roads businesses delivered P2.2 billion while the hospital group contributed P465 million of the total.

Consolidated reported net income improved 10 percent to P7.9 billion in 2014 from P7.2 billion a year earlier.

“All of our operating companies reported strong profitability for the year. This reflects our intense focus on operational efficiencies but at the cost of years of high capital expenditures,” said Jose Ma. K. Lim, MPIC president and chief executive officer.

“We anticipate continued strong volume growth in 2015 for all our subsidiaries in light of anticipated continuing economic growth,” Lim added.

The conglomerate’s officials, however, declined to give its profit guidance for this year.

“The overdue tariff increases on our roads, where we can’t continue capital expenditures without regard to tariffs, together with the inexplicable delay of the MWSS in acting on the arbitration award for Maynilad, mean that it is rather early for us to provide earnings guidance for 2015 at this time,” Pangilinan said.