Conglomerate Ayala Corp. said Monday capital expenditures could reach P182 billion in 2021 as the group remains “cautiously optimistic” about the growth of the domestic economy.
This year’s planned spending would be 16 percent higher than P157 billion the Ayala Group invested in 2020.
Ayala Corp. president and chief operating officer Fernando Zobel de Ayala said in a televised briefing with Presidential Spokesman Harry Roque consumer behavior and mobility improved over the past several months while companies started to expand and invest again.
“I was quite pleasantly surprised that our overseas Filipino remittance numbers did not go down as much as we thought they would and are now doing a little better. So I am cautiously optimistic and hopeful that we will see growth of 5 percent to 6 percent this year, which is a very dramatic reversal from what we have seen last year, for understandable reasons,” Zobel de Ayala said.
He said the low-interest rate environment allowed many companies to raise capital to help people and keep businesses running amid the pandemic.
The situation, however, could change if a second wave of infections hit the country, he said.
“I hope we don’t get a second wave. Our government officials have cautioned us that we must be extremely careful. If we get to the second wave, the situation will be very different,” he said.
Fernando Zobel de Ayala, 60, will become the new president and chief executive of Ayala Corp. in April 2021 in place of older brother Jaime Zobel de Ayala who will stay as the chairman of the group.
Ayala Corp. is one of the country’s largest conglomerates with investments in real estate, retail, hotel, power, automotive, manufacturing, telecommunications and banking.
Ayala Corp.’s net income fell 75 percent in the first nine months of 2020 to P11.4 billion from a year ago, after its mall and property businesses suffered from the mobility restrictions amid the pandemic.
The conglomerate’s total donation to government’s COVID-19 drive reached P12.7 billion.
Zobel de Ayala said the group also ordered 450,000 doses of AstraZeneca Plc vaccines, half of which would be donated to the government as part of the private sector’s efforts to buy shots.
The conglomerate also committed to help with the distribution of the vaccines to various parts of the country.
The share price of Ayala Corp. rose 1.09 percent Monday to close at P836.