Roxas Holdings posts 163% profit hike

MANILA, Philippines - Listed sugar miller Roxas Holdings, Inc. (RHI) posted a 163 percent increase in its net income in the first quarter of its fiscal year ending on Dec. 31, 2013 on higher sales of refined sugar and ethanol.

RHI’s net income for the first three months of its fiscal year rose to P90 million, up from P34 million recorded in the same period the previous year.

RHI chairman Pedro E. Roxas said the company was able to sell carry-over inventory of 500,000 50-kilogram bags of refined sugar which boosted the company’s total sales for the period to reach around P1 billion.

Refined sugar was the company’s top earner for the period, raking in P67 million, up from P66 million in the same period last year.

RHI president and CEO Renato Valencia said sales for ethanol have returned to positive “albeit small” compared to losses of P41 million incurred during the same period last year.

He said the company’s subsidiary Roxol Bioenergy Corp. sold five million liters of ethanol in the first quarter of its fiscal year, up from 668,000 liters  sold in the same period last year.

Both executives noted that the first quarter is a typically slow period for the industry as cane deliveries and sugar recovery “are just starting to scale up.”

RHI is an integrated sugar milling business exercising full management of Central Azucarera Don Pedro, Inc., in Nasugbu, Batangas, as well as Central Azucarera de la Carlota, Inc., and Roxol Bioenergy Corp. in La Carlota, Negros Occidental.

It also holds a 45 percent interest in sugar miller Hawaiian-Philippine Co. in Negros Occidental.