Sugar and ethanol producer Roxas Holdings Inc. said Thursday net income in the fiscal year ending September 2017 climbed 18 percent to P120 million from P102 million recorded in the same period last year, driven by the strong performance of sugar business.
The listed company said without the non-recurring expenses of P120 million, core net income hit P240 million, a 135-percent improvement from a year ago.
Consolidated net income with interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization reached P1.6 billion in the sugar fiscal year, or 23 percent higher than a year earlier, marking the second straight year of sustained growth.
RHI chairman Pedro Roxas said the sustained improvement in Ebitda was a result of the long-term initiatives undertaken by the group.
Revenues from the sugar business, which accounted for 67 percent of consolidated revenues, declined 7 percent to P7.3 billion from P7.8 billion in the same period last year, as average sugar prices went down by 15 percent
The group’s sugar business milled 3.461 million metric tons of cane in the period, up 26 percent from last year’s 2.748 million TCM. It also produced 6.497 million 50-kg bags of sugar for the period, surpassing last year’s production of 5.102 million bags.
RHI president and chief executive Hubert Tubio attributed the increased production to the improved relationship between the company and the planters and the upgrades implemented for the equipment and processes.
“We were able to reduce the overall costs of production, which also alleviated the impact of the soft prices of sugar,” Tubio said.
Meanwhile, revenues of the group’s ethanol business segment slid 14 percent to P3.6 billion from P4.2 billion while volume was steady at around 70 million liters as a result of lower average price of ethanol.
The price of ethanol is generally linked to the price of sugar and molasses, which are the main feedstock in the production of ethanol.