Century Pacific raises capex

MANILA, Philippines — Century Pacific Food Inc. (CNPF), the Po family’s listed food company, is raising its  capital expenditures this year to up to P3.5 billion from the usual P2 billion,   its executive chairman Christopher Po said.

“We are expanding capacity in a number of business units namely our meat business, our pet food business, our coconut business and others including our packaging/manufacturing because we manufacture our own tin cans... This should contribute to our future growth in the coming years,” Po said during the company’s annual stockholders meeting held yesterday.

CNPF president and CEO Teodoro Po expects double-digit topline growth for 2023.

Initially, Chris said they expected a topline growth range of 10 percent to 15 percent  but now expects closer to 10 percent to 11 percent growth given some consumer headwinds in the first half of the year.

Overall, CNPF sees better performance in the second half of the year compared to  the first half now that inflation has eased to a one year low of 5.4 percent in June   2023 and still expected to ease further in the coming months.

Bottomline growth will likely be mid to high single digits, affirming the company’s previous guidance, he said.

Moving forward, the Po brothers expect CNPF’s legacy businesses such as marine and meat to continue to grow as well as its other businesses such as dairy, coconut and pet food.

“We are offering more value for money alternatives and that will constitute both the marine which are the  tuna and sardines, the meat segment as well as dairy so value for money seems to be the prevailing theme and our innovations and new products will be brought along these lines,” he said in a press conference after the stockholders meeting.

This developed as CNPF yesterday elected three new members to its board of directors yesterday. They are investment banker Stephen CuUnjieng, lawyer Regina Jacinto-Barrientos, and banker Philip Soliven.

CNPF’s board is composed of nine seats. Three of which became available as long-time independent directors, Fernan Lukban and Johnip Cua, bid farewell to the company with  the conclusion of the maximum nine-year term beginning the firm’s  initial public offering in 2014.

The third seat was formerly occupied by CNPF’s late founder and chairman emeritus Ricardo Po Sr.

Some of CNPF’s brands are Century Tuna, 555, Argentina, Angel, Birch Tree and Kaffe de Oro.