Eagle Cement nets 49% more in 3 months

MANILA, Philippines — Eagle Cement Corp., the listed cement company of the Ang family, reported a 49 percent growth in the first quarter to P1.6 billion.

Strong sales boosted the company’s first quarter results, a reflection of the company’s solid fundamentals amid a challenging business environment.

Eagle posted P5.4 billion in net sales, up 34 percent year-on-year, boosted by a 20 percent jump in volume coupled with the improvement in the average selling price of cement. Gross profit grew 23 percent to P2.3 billion.

Eagle president and  chief executive officer Paul Ang attributed the strong first quarter results to strong demand.

“Our solid performance in the first quarter is still anchored on the increasing domestic demand for cement, with demand mostly coming from the private sector and supported by the infrastructure development of the government,” Ang said.

Moving forward, Ang said the company remains positive about the growth prospects of the cement industry.

“We see imported traded cements growing at a faster pace compared with 2018 despite the implementation of the additional duty for imported cement starting February this year. This is a proof that we still have a long way to go in order to meet the accelerating demand expected in the years to come,” Ang said.

The financial position of the company remains healthy, providing enough capacity to undertake its growth plans.

Total assets grew three percent to P46.7 billion while total liabilities declined one percent to P12.5 billion.

Eagle is currently expanding its Bulacan plant with an additional grinding capacity of 1.5 million metric tons, bringing the plant’s total annual cement capacity to 8.6 million metric tons by 2020.