San Miguel's interim profit nearly doubles

MANILA (AFP) - San Miguel Corp said Thursday its net profit nearly doubled to 7.88 billion pesos (174.80 million dollars) in the first half, driven by robust Philippines sales of beer and other food products.

San Miguel, Southeast Asia's largest publicly-listed food and beverage company, said in a statement that this offset drought-induced higher costs at its Australian dairy operations.

The company gave no comparative figures.

It previously reported 2006 interim net profit of 4.36 billion pesos.

Consolidated sales rose nine percent to 112.7 billion pesos, driven by double-digit growth in the domestic beer and food businesses.

Operating profit declined to 8.2 billion pesos, San Miguel said, though it did not say how much the drop was.

"This is due to the increased costs of National Foods' operations -- a direct result of the prolonged drought in Australia," it said.

"International beer sales gained in the second quarter but San Miguel's packaging and liquor subsidiaries, although improving, are still behind last year," the company said.

San Miguel's domestic beer operations, which the company is preparing to spin off under the newly incorporated San Miguel Brewery Inc., saw sales rise six percent to 21.2 billion pesos.

Despite the drought in Australia, it said National Foods' first half sales grew 10 percent to 967.6 million Australian dollars (826.33 million US).