August 8, 2015
Manila Bulletin (Madelaine B. Miraflor) | http://goo.gl/7YYDFw
Universal Robina Corp. (URC), food and beverage arm of the Gokongwei group, almost saw its nine-month income growing by P10 billion for the fiscal year 2015 on the back of its growth sales.
The fiscal year of URC begins from October 2014 and ending September 2015.
The company’s disclosure to the Philippine Stock Exchange yesterday showed that its net income for the first nine months of fiscal year 2015 reached P9.6 billion, an 11.8-percent increase against prior year.
Its operating income, on the other hand, stood at P13.059 billion or 24.1-percent higher than the P10.524 billion it posted in the prior year as lower input prices and additional operating leverage resulted in margin expansion for branded foods.
“Growth was slower than operating income as we booked higher net finance cost, equity share in net losses of joint ventures we started recently, namely Calbee-URC, Inc. and Danone Universal Robina Beverages, Inc. and unrealized foreign exchange losses mainly coming from our Indonesia operations,” URC told the stock exchange.
During the period, URC reported an 18.3-percent sales growth for the first nine months of fiscal year 2015 with its net sales amounting to P81.943 billion.
“URC’s strong sales was mainly driven by branded foods and complemented by sugar and feeds,” URC said.
Philippine branded consumer foods (BCF) business increased sales by 10.9 percent for the period, while its international branded consumer foods recorded a 38.4 percent growth with the consolidation of Griffin’s New Zealand results starting mid-November upon closing of the acquisition.
Meanwhile, the company’s sales of its non-branded consumer foods group increased by 12.5 percent for the first nine months of fiscal year 2015 due to increase in sales volume for sugar and feeds which grew 39.4 percent and 19.9 percent respectively.
URC’s non-branded consumer foods business, commodity foods group and agro-industrial group, also posted revenues of P13.1 billion for the first nine months of fiscal year 2015, an increase of 12.5 percent against last year.
The company’s sugar business, on the other hand, grew revenues by 39.4 percent due to higher volumes, while growth in flour business was flat vs. same period last year, while its met sales for its agro-industrial group increased by 7.9 percent due to good sales volume for feeds, which grew by 19.9 percent, while the farms business posted flattish growth.