MPIC profit jumps 30% in 9 months

MANILA, Philippines - Metro Pacific Investments Corp. reported a 30 percent jump in its profit in the nine months ending September this year to P7.8 billion despite the regulatory hurdles faced by its water and toll roads businesses.

Core earnings grew 28 percent to P8.2 billion, driven by strong traffic growth of all the roads held by Metro Pacific Tollways Corp., higher billed volume for Maynilad Water Services Inc. and increased shareholding in Manila Electric Co.

Metro Pacific president and CEO Jose Ma. K. Lim said earnings of the company would have been better had it not been struggling with regulatory issues on water and toll roads.

“We are struggling uphill in toll roads and water against regulators who won’t follow the rules they agreed themselves. It’s no wonder investment in our country is lagging behind its needs,” he said.

Lim, nevertheless, expects its subsidiaries to perform well for the remainder of the year due to a growing economy.

MPIC chairman Manuel V. Pangilinan said the company is sticking to its core profit guidance for the year of P10 billion.

 “The strong results for the year to date reflect continuing improvements in service levels as well as efficiency and financing gains for our operating companies. Unfortunately, increasing regulatory risks – of which tariff adjustments are the principal item – may eventually degrade the level of services. This is a prospect we wish to avoid,” he said.

 In terms of contribution to the company’s net operating income, Meralco accounted for P3.9 billion or 39 percent of the total, Maynilad (P3.6 billion or 36 percent), MPTC (P2.1 billion or 22 percent) and the hospital group (P319 million or three percent).

Meralco reported a core net income of P15.8 billion, up by 11 percent on the back of a five percent increase in energy sales to 27,496 gigawatt hours.

Maynilad’s net earnings were up by 22 percent to P7.1 billion as revenues increased by five percent to P14.2 billion owing to higher billed volume.