Monde Nissin Corp., the country’s largest instant noodle maker, booked an impairment charge of P6.8 billion in 2024 as its alternative meat business continued to struggle.
This year’s impairment charge is slightly lower than the P10.1 billion in non-cash, non-operating impairment recorded by Monde Nissin for its Quorn meat alternative business in 2023.
Despite the large impairment booked in 2024, Monde Nissin reported a net income of P450 million, a sharp turnaround from a P626-million net loss in 2023.
Core net income climbed 28.6 percent year-on-year to P9.8 billion, while consolidated revenue for the full year increased 3.7 percent to P83.1 billion.
Monde Nissin chief executive Henry Soesanto expects the company to register mid-single-digit revenue growth and full-year gross margin in 2025, broadly in line with last year.
Sales from the Asia Pacific Branded Food Business (APAC BFB) grew 5.4 percent in 2024 to P69.5 billion, largely driven by volume growth in all categories.
The domestic business grew by 5 percent for the full year and 7.3 percent for the fourth quarter alone.
“Our APAC BFB business delivered strong top-line growth and profitability, resulting in record revenues and core net income for both the quarter and the year. This success was driven by volume growth across all categories,” Soesanto said.
Sales from the meat alternative business declined 9.3 percent in 2024 on continued softness in demand.
Despite ongoing revenue challenges in the Quorn business, Soesanto expects this business segment to show improvement in cash flow this year, which will reduce the risk of further impairments.
“We achieved EBITDA neutral for the year by focusing on cost reduction and efficiency improvements. However, the challenging environment led to an additional impairment of P6.8 billion after tax, due to a tempered EBITDA cash flow forecast and a higher Weighted Average Cost of Capital [WACC]. Additionally, unfavorable market conditions resulted in a mark-to-market loss of 2.6 billion pesos on our guaranty asset,” Soesanto said.