Conglomerate Ayala Corp. registered a net income of P26 billion in 2016, an increase of 17 percent from a year ago, led by the double-digit growth of contributions from real estate and banking units.
The conglomerate said the aggressive move to expand to new businesses started to bear fruits with strong earnings contribution from emerging businesses in power and industrial technologies.
Ayala Corp. said in a disclosure to the stock exchange equity earnings contribution from core businesses expanded 14 percent to 32 billion from a year earlier.
Equity earnings from Bank of the Philippine Islands and Ayala Land Inc. jumped 19 percent and 18 percent, respectively. Meanwhile, equity earnings from AC Energy soared 27 percent, while equity earnings from AC Industrials grew 51 percent, as its automotive business surged nearly fivefold during the year.
“Ayala capped its five-year strategic target in 2016 with net income expanding nearly threefold and a 23 percent compounded annual growth rate since we put the plan in place in 2011. We believe this was achieved through our disciplined execution and a strong domestic environment,” Ayala Corp. president and chief operating officer Fernando Zobel de Ayala said.
AC Industrials, which houses the group’s investments in industrial technologies such as Integrated Micro-Electronics and AC Automotive, posted P1.8 billion in net income in 2016, up 29 percent from 2015.
Its automotive business contributed significant profit growth, lifted by robust vehicle sales across all brands and higher contribution from its distribution businesses.
AC Energy also registered P2.7 billion in net earnings in 2016, which was 25 percent higher than the 2015 level, fueled by strong equity earnings contribution from its operating assets, boosted by gains from value realization from its partial sale of shares in South Luzon Thermal Energy Corp.
Ayala Corp. chief finance officer Jose Teodoro Limcaoco said AC Energy would continue to scale up its investments in the power sector as it aimed to have 2,000 megawatts of net attributable generating capacity by 2020.