JG Summit Holdings Inc., the holding firm of the Gokongwei family, said its income plunged 86 percent to P700 million last year, despite a double-digit growth of its revenues that already surpassed pre-pandemic levels.
The company said last year’s attributable income included the P6 billion gains and contributions from its food manufacturing arm’s discontinued Oceania operations.
JG Summit said its core income, which included the portfolio management gain that the parent company realized from the sale of some of its shares in Manila Electric Co. Inc., registered a 2-fold increase to P6.2 billion.
Revenues rose 36 percent to P312.4 billion from last year’s P230.55 billion on the back of a reopening economy.
The company said they have been proactive in protecting and preserving its margins through direct and indirect price adjustments, and the implementation of cost savings and productivity initiatives across its different business units.
“We experienced a surge in consumption which drove the strong demand for our products and services across our food, real estate and airline businesses. The demand was sustained throughout the year, this against the backdrop of significant inflation—with the volatility driven by the weaker peso and higher prices of oil and soft commodities,” JG Summit President and CEO Lance Y. Gokongwei said.
“We continue to remain cautiously optimistic in 2023 given the lingering geopolitical and global economic risk. With inflation forecasted to slowly ease out on a sequential basis, we are hopeful that domestic consumption will remain buoyant while we expect to benefit from the reopening of China in our airline and petrochemicals businesses,” Gokongwei added.
The company said the group’s cost-saving measures translated to a significant profit improvements, which was evident on its airline Cebu Air Inc., which also benefitted from relaxed travel restrictions. Meanwhile, its petrochemical unit’s new product lines cushioned the adverse impact of subdued industrial demand globally.
JG Summit Olefins Corp. implemented a three-month facility shutdown in mid-2022 along with other petrochemical players in the region on the subdued global demand with China’s borders being closed.
Contributions from its recently commissioned aromatics and butadiene extraction units cushioned the 11 percent decline in total revenues at P35.9 billion. The company ended 2022 with a P14.9 billion net loss.
Peak Fuel, its LPG trading unit, also provided an additional revenue stream and continued to expand. Its newly-completed PE3 plant will also allow the company to seize opportunities and capture value through more innovative product offerings, the company said.
The company’s share in Meralco’s earnings reached P7.8 billion, as the company registered higher profits from its Singapore power generation unit and larger sales volumes from its domestic energy distribution business.
The group also received higher dividends from PLDT Inc. amounting to P2.8 billion, a 43 percent growth.
For Singapore Land Group, the surge in hotel revenues and higher residential property sales, plus a larger share in the profits of its associates and joint ventures outpaced the slight decline in its leasing business. As a result, equity earnings contribution to the company ended at P3 billion, 10 percent higher from 2021.
