JG Summit income triples

MANILA, Philippines — Conglomerate JG Summit Holdings Inc. of the Gokongwei family saw a surge in its core profit in the first quarter following strong contributions of its food, real estate and air transport businesses, coupled with the gains realized from its bank merger.

JG Summit’s core net income reached P12.6 billion from January to March, up 213 percent year-on-year.

Driving core net income growth were increased capacity and improved efficiency of its airline, the record-breaking EBITDA of its property arm, as well as the growing volumes and sustained margin uplift of its food and beverage business.

JG Summit said this was supplemented by the P7.9-billion gain from the merger of the Bank of the Philippine Islands and Robinsons Bank, which became effective at the start of the year.

The company said that even without the merger gains, the solid performance of its listed units translated to a 16-percent growth in the group’s consolidated core profits.

With all its subsidiaries showing continued topline expansion, revenues generated for the quarter climbed by 18 percent to P96.7 billion.

“We kicked off 2024 with sustained improvements across our businesses, seeing robust sales volumes in our petrochemical and food businesses, as well as strong demand for air travel, leisure, and hospitality services,” JG Summit president and CEO Lance Gokongwei said.

“Margins have been buoyed by a combination of volume growth, managed input costs, and operating leverage. We have also begun seeing green shoots in our petrochemicals arm as value realization has begun for its commercial and operational initiatives,” he said.

Looking ahead, Gokongwei said the group continues to work on growing our airline’s capacity to serve the gradual uptick in demand, while driving volume-based growth in its food and beverage business,

It also intends to sustain the momentum in its property unit and accelerate the transformation program of its petrochemicals arm.