Filinvest posts modest revenue, income growth

MANILA, Philippines - Filinvest Development Corp. (FDC), the investment holding firm of the Gotianun family, said its revenues increased modestly in the first nine months of the year on the back of its property subsidiary’s continued strength.

In a statement, FDC said revenues grew to P27.6 billion, up 8.2 percent from P25.5 billion last year.

Likewise, FDC’s net income before tax in the first three quarters of the year posted a slight improvement, increasing one percent year-on-year to P5 billion, the firm reported.

“The Filinvest Group has been in an aggressive investment mode with the unprecedented branch expansion of EastWest Bank, the buildup of office building portfolio of Filinvest Land Inc.  as well as the construction of Mindanao’s largest power plant. Such expansion will provide the necessary infrastructure for future solid growth but is expected to impact the group earnings in the short term,” said FDC president and chief executive officer Josephine Gotianun-Yap.

FDC said while consolidated core earnings of its major subsidiaries showed a robust 25 percent growth, the increase was tempered by the industry-wide decline in trading gains of its banking subsidiary.

“Growth in both property and banking was moderated by the industry-wide decline in EastWest trading revenues in 2014 compared to extraordinary trading gains in 2013,” FDC reported.

EastWest Bank’s earnings declined five percent in the first three quarters to P1.65 billion due to lower trading gains.

“Costs are expected to be bloated this year due to the branch store expansion. Though we will bear this pain in the short term, we expect earnings to jump to higher levels once the stores become productive and mature,” said Jonathan T. Gotianun, chairman of FDC.

For the January to September period, bulk of FDC’s revenues are generated by the real estate and banking subsidiaries, accounting for 47 percent and 42 percent, respectively.

Sugar and hotels, meanwhile, contributed eight percent and three percent of revenues, respectively.

Moving forwards, Gotinanun-Yap said the group expects its power subsidiary FDC Utilities Inc. to start contributing revenue ahead of schedule by 2015 from its independent power producer administrator contracts (IPPA).

FDC Utilities has recently won the right to manage 140-megawatt contracted capacity of the Mount Apo and Unified Leyte geothermal power plants from the bidding conducted by PSALM.

The power unit’s 405 MW coal-fired power plant in Mindanao is also on schedule for completion in 2016, the firm reported.

Aside from power, FDC has also been aggressive in the water supply projects by expressing bids in Public-Private Partnership (PPP) program of the Philippine government.

FDC recently led a consortium that sought for pre-qualification for the P24.4-billion Bulacan bulk water supply project rolled out by the Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System (MWSS) and has also acquired bidding documents for the P18.72-billion New Centennial Water Source-Kaliwa Dam project.

“There is a wide potential in the water supply projects under the PPP program and this strongly complement our water services management expertise that has been there for more than 25 years,” Gotianun-Yap said.