Alsons earnings up 20% to P450M in '11

MANILA, Philippines - Earnings of Alcantara-led Alsons Consolidated Resources, Inc. (ACR) surged 20 percent to more than P450 million last year on the back of higher energy sales.

ACR is banking on the acquisition of a diesel-fueled power plant in Iligan to further increase profits this year.

“Net income attributed to the parent grew by 20 percent to P456 million in 2011 from P378 million in 2010,” ACR said in a disclosure to the stock exchange. Earnings per share rose to P0.072 per share from P0.06 in the previous year.

Higher profits were backed by the eight-percent growth in consolidated revenues to P2.94 billion last year from P2.71 billion a year earlier.

“Energy fees from its power subsidiaries continued to comprise more than 70 percent of these revenues, with the balance accounted for by property subsidiary Lima Land Inc.,” ACR said.

ACR’s energy and power businesses are held by Conal Holdings Corp., Mapalad Power Corp. (MPC), Sarangani Energy Corp. (SEC), Alsing Power Holdings, Inc., Alsons Power Holdings Corp., (APHC), Northern Mindanao Power Corp., and Alto Power Management Corp.

For this year, its income will be boosted by the acquisition of the former Iligan diesel power plant, said ACR chairman and president Tomas I. Alcantara.

“Once MPC takes over the idle plant, it can rehabilitate the plant and bring it up to full 102-megawatt (MW) capacity in six months,” Alcantara said.

ACR said the city government of Iligan took over the 102-MW diesel plant from National Power Corp. in 2010. MPC won the public auction for the power plant in 2011.

Alcantara said the rehabilitation will increase total output of ACR while bringing in additional power generating capacity to Mindanao, which is facing one to three hours of rotating brownouts given a supply shortfall.

Early this month, ACR said it needs around $560 million to build a 200-MW coal-fired power plant in Mindanao.

The project, located in Maasim, Sarangani province, is expected to add to the power capacity in the Mindanao grid by June 2014. It will be undertaken by subsidiary SEC.

Subsidiary APHC has around 20 percent stake in Australia-listed Indophil Resources, which holds a 37.5 percent stake in the $5.9-billion Tampakan project, Southeast Asia’s largest undeveloped copper-gold prospect.