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By Likha C. Cuevas-Miel, Reporter
FIRST Philippine Holdings Corp. announced on
Friday that its profit year grew by more than half due to the better
performance of its subsidiaries.
In a statement, the holding firm of Manila
Electric Co. (Meralco), First Philippine Infrastructure Inc., First
Philippine Infrastructure Development Corp., and Manila North
Tollways Corp. said its recurring net income rose by 63 percent to
P4.4 billion year-on-year.
Gross revenues for the 12-month period, however,
slid by 1.3 percent to P58.8 billion, including the one-time gain of
P2.7 billion the holding company booked from the First Gen Corp.
initial public offering and P2.8 billion from the Meralco reversal
of provisions for losses.
“The good financial results of First Holdings
were again driven by the strong performance of our investment
portfolio”, said Elpidio Ibañez, the company’s president and
chief operating officer.
Last year, the company increased its share in
Meralco from 17.7 percent to 24.3 percent. It acquired the 9.1
percent stake held by Union Fenosa Internacional, S.A., which pushed
First Holdings’ ownership in the country’s largest power
distributor to 33.4 percent.
Affiliate First Gen Corp. also won the
government’s 60 percent stake in Philippine National Oil Co. –
Energy Development Corp. (PNOC-EDC), making the Lopez-controlled
power firm the largest vertically-integrated player in the local
industry.
In a separate statement, First Gen said its
earnings last year grew by 14 percent to $104.7 million owing to the
higher earnings of its natural gas plants. Also contributing to the
profit boost were its newly-acquired assets, the 112 megawatt
Pantabangan-Masiway hydroelectric plant and PNOC-EDC.
First Gen’s 1,000-megawatt Sta. Rita and
500-megawatt San Lorenzo natural gas power plants posted a combined
net income of $169.10 million while the Pantabangan-Masiway plant
registered $29 million in earnings. PNOC-EDC contributed another
$16.7 million.
”We are quite pleased with the 2007 financial
and operating results. All of the power plants in the portfolio
performed well and delivered numbers beyond our expectations,”
Federico Lopez, First Gen president and chief executive officer,
said.
The company’s consolidated revenues increased
by 5 percent to $1.1 billion last year. The increase was primarily
due to the Pantabangan-Masiway’s full year operations,
PNOC-EDC’s sale of steam and electricity, and the sale of
additional electricity from its natural gas plants.
Lopez said that First Gen’s Sta. Rita and San
Lorenzo plants delivered more electricity due to upgrades last year
and enjoyed the highest dispatch rates at an average of 81 percent
among the power plants in the Luzon grid.
-- With Euan Paulo C. Añonuevo
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