Top Frontier optimistic over SMC's recovery
Top Frontier Investment Holdings, Inc. maintains a positive outlook for subsidiary San Miguel Corporation (SMC) as it expects the firm to recover later this year.
In a statement following its annual stockholders meeting, Top Frontier said that, while the quarantine has slowed down SMC’s growth momentum, the company is primed to recover lost ground in the coming months with strategies in place to adapt to the new business environment.
“As we transition to our next normal, I am confident that San Miguel Corporation will recover its footing sooner than expected,” Top Frontier Chairman Inigo Zobel said.
Earlier, SMC President and Chief Operation Officer Ramon S. Ang said that SMC would continue to invest in growth-creating and jobgenerating projects — including its ongoing capacity expansion and infrastructure development initiatives.
SMC also touted measures the company has put in place to adjust to the changing operating environment.
These include: Making supply chains more resilient, updating operating and selling models, keeping its cost base appropriate and manageable; increasing efficiencies and rationalizing spending, and protecting its cash flows and pro-actively managing its working capital.
Top Frontier also praised SMC’s initiatives to help the country during the pandemic, including the recent inauguration of its Better World Edsa COVID-19 PCR testing laboratory. The facility can process 4,000 tests daily, expandable to 12,000.
It aims to handle testing for some 70,000 employees and extended workers in SMC’s nationwide network, and boost the country’s overall testing capacity.
It is just the latest of many COVID-19 response initiatives from SMC.
SMC has spent over ₱13 billion in assistance to the country, a package that includes food donations to vulnerable communities, disinfectant alcohol to health facilities, medical equipment and personal protective equipment (PPE), free toll and fuel for medical health workers, emergency quarantine facilities, assistance to the agriculture sector, advance tax and other payments to government, and continuing compensation for its workforce. (James A. Loyola)