Conglomerate Ayala Corp. said Tuesday net income in 2014 jumped 46 percent to P18.6 billion, fueled by the solid performance of its real estate, telecommunications and electronics manufacturing units and boosted by a net gain from the sale of its business process outsourcing asset.
Minus the impact of the accelerated depreciation from the telecom unit’s network transformation initiative in the previous year, the conglomerate’s core net income grew 25 percent in 2014.
Ayala said in a disclosure to the stock exchange consolidated revenues in 2014 rose 15.5 percent to P184 billion from P159.2 billion in 2013.
Ayala attributed the positive financial performance to the strong equity earnings contribution from its business units, which reached P24.9 billion, up 42 percent a year ago.
Equity earnings from Ayala Land Inc. rose 28 percent while Globe Telecom Inc. more than doubled its contribution. Integrated Micro-Electronics Inc.’s share expanded threefold. Ayala, in addition, booked a P1.8-billion net gain from its divestment in Stream Global Services Inc.
The strong equity earnings from the business units more than offset the relatively flat contribution from the Bank of the Philippine Islands, which registered lower trading income during the year.
“We are very pleased with the performance of our business units as they continue to benefit from the aggressive growth strategy they executed a few years ago. This has, in turn, allowed us to optimize earnings and value at the parent level,” Ayala president and chief operating officer Fernando Zobel de Ayala said.
“We continued to invest in new areas of growth, particularly in power generation and transport infrastructure. As our business units sustain their growth momentum and the overall business environment continues to be encouraging, we are optimistic we can achieve our net income target of P20 billion this year, a year ahead of the plan,” Zobel de Ayala said.
The conglomerate is boosting its investment in power and transport sectors.
Ayala put up 700 megawatts of attributable capacity in both conventional and renewable power generating assets, raising its committed equity investments in the sector to $700 million over the past three years.
In the transport infrastructure, Ayala bagged two public-private partnership projects in 2014 along with various strategic partners, namely the Automated Fare Collection System and the LRT 1 Cavite Extension projects.