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JG
Summit Holdings Inc. said Tuesday its net income in 2007
rose 32.3 percent to P8.6 billion from P6.5 billion a
year earlier as its food and airline businesses
delivered strong results.
Revenues
for the Gokongwei-led conglomerate went rose to P92.5
billion, up 7.4 percent from P86.1 billion in the same
comparable period.
JG
Summit, whose shares are traded on the Philippine Stock
Exchange said its food unit Universal Robina Corp. (URC)
posted a 7.2-percent improvement in revenues to P37.7
billion mainly because of the impressive growth in sales
of beverage, snack foods and animal feeds. URC continues
to be the biggest contributor to the group’s revenues,
accounting for 40.8 percent of the total.
In terms
of earnings, URC likewise grew from P3.02 billion to
P5.56 billion, due to a P2.86-billion gain on the sale
of its investment in sister firm Robinsons Land Corp. (RLC).
However, the said gain was recorded by the group in
2006, thus, it is no longer reflected in the
consolidated net income.
Cebu
Pacific Air, meanwhile, recorded revenues of P15.02
billion, a 54.5-percent rise over the previous year’s
P9.72 billion.
“It has
successfully carried almost 5.5 million passengers in
2007, an increase of 58 percent from the previous year’s
3.5 million passengers. This makes Cebu Pacific the
single-largest domestic carrier in the country today,”
JG Summit said.
The
airline unit recorded the most significant in earnings
from P196.79 million to P3.61 billion, brought about by
a substantial increase in passenger load in both
domestic and international routes.
“…Because Cebu Pacific boasts of a young fleet, this has
helped it improve aircraft utilization and become more
cost-efficient. It must be noted, though, that P1.9
billion of this net income was due to foreign-exchange
gains arising out of the translation of the value of its
dollar-denominated debt into Philippine pesos,” JG
Summit said.
Property
unit RLC generated gross revenues of P8.28 billion, an
increase of 24.8 percent from P6.4 billion. Its
high-rise division continues to lead growth on
continuing strong demand for condominiums and office
space.
For its
part, telco unit Digital Telecommunications Phils. Inc.
(Digitel) posted an increase of 8.9 percent in service
revenues. Mobile-phone business Sun Cellular saw a jump
in revenues as it reached a wider subscriber base due to
an aggressive network roll-out that started in 2006.
This
compensated for the decline in its fixed-line service
revenues caused by the continuing shift toward mobile
telephony.
Digitel
saw a reversal in its net earnings from a loss of
P962.91 million to a net income of P1.17 billion because
of foreign-exchange gains on the translation of
dollar-denominated obligations, which amounted to P5.15
billion in 2007 from P2.68 billion in 2006. |
