August 13, 2024 | 12:00am
MANILA, Philippines — JG Summit Holdings Inc. saw its core earnings nearly double to P18.1 billion in the first half, boosted by the strong demand for travel and leisure activities coupled with the realized gains from its bank merger early this year.
Excluding the P7.9-billion gain from the merger between Bank of the Philippine Islands and Robinsons Bank, the group said recurring core profits for the six-month period expanded by 12 percent year-on-year.
JG Summit’s reported net income for the semester, which incorporates non-core items such as foreign exchange and mark-to-market losses, surged by 43 percent to P14.8 billion.
Consolidated revenues generated for the period climbed by 15 percent to P187.8 billion.
The group attributed strong first half revenues to the rising demand for tourism and recreation, along with increased petrochemical operations plus higher food and beverage sales volumes.
“We continue to post overall topline growth despite the lingering effects of inflation which dampened consumer sentiment. We have seen a divergence of results from our operating units with the strong demand for travel and leisure benefiting our air transport and real estate businesses,” JG Summit president and CEO Lance Gokongwei said.
Gokongwei said its food and beverage unit continues to deliver higher sales volumes, but product mix has changed into lower price point categories.
He said increased plant utilization in petrochemicals unit also helped pull up the group’s revenues in the first half.
“Coupled with our initiatives to drive productivity and better operating leverage, we have now seen improvements in margins,” he said.
Gokongwei said JG Summit hopes to sustain its momentum in the second half with the expected decline in inflation, which, in turn, could ignite the sequential rebound in consumer demand.
“We will continue to execute our commercial strategies to drive topline growth while implementing overall operational discipline to ensure we sustain the year-on-year recovery in core net income and margins,” he said.
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