ABS-CBN Corp. said Thursday it expects a financial turnaround this year, driven by a significant reduction in debt and an anticipated increase in advertising revenue.
The company’s positive outlook follows the sale of a three-hectare property in Quezon City to Ayala Land, which is expected to substantially reduce its outstanding bank loans.
“We are scheduled to turn over the property to Ayala Land by December 2026. All the proceeds from the sale of this property will be used to reduce our bank loans,” said Carlo Katigbak, president and chief executive of ABS-CBN.
With the pending sale, Katigbak expects to further reduce the company’s debt to around P13 billion this year from P21 billion in 2020.
“I believe we are finally well-positioned for a turnaround in 2025,” Katigbak said.
“We hope to achieve profitability sometime within the next 18 months. As we mentioned earlier, we are already at an optimum level of spending, while we feel that the advertising market is improving, and our direct-to-consumer businesses are also picking up. We are also very excited and enthusiastic about growing our international revenues.”
Katigbak noted that the advertising market is recovering from last year and the company will get an “extraordinary bump” from election-related advertising.
“We hope to sustain the gains from our digital businesses while growing our international licensing, film and music revenues. With reduced debt levels, we expect financing costs to decline, improving our cash flow and profitability,” he said.
The company’s operating income improved by 40 percent compared to 2023, and its net losses declined by 53 percent, primarily due to improvements in cost management and the growth in content production and distribution revenues.
Katigbak said ABS-CBN will keep the remaining 1.4 hectares, which consists of the ELJ Communications Center and its studios.
“We will be consolidating all our operations and studios inside the ELJ Communications Center and plan to complete this move by July 2026,” he said.
