D&L seeks more partnerships for expansion

D&L Industries, Inc. is seeking more partnerships with multinational corporations (MNCs) who wish to expand their presence in Asia.

D&L President Alvin Lao said solid partners, like Ventura Foods, would help the company grow its export business faster than the local business.

“There are large multinational food companies who want to have a presence in, or plan to expand to, Asia but they do not want to invest in putting up manufacturing plants or maintaining local offices,” Lao on the sidelines of the company’s annual stockholders’ meeting on Monday.

“We can represent them. We can be the distributor for their products in Asia or we can manufacture their products for them,” he added.

At the same briefing, the company declared a cash dividend of P0.26 per share, broken down into a regular dividend of P0.205 and a special dividend of P0.055 per share, payable to stockholders of record as of June 20, 2018. The total dividend payout will amount to P1.86 billion.

“The dividend represents an increase of 11 percent from last year’s P1.68 billion and is equivalent to 64 percent of last year’s recurring income,” Lao said.

“Including this year’s payment, the company has declared a total of P6.75 billion in cash to shareholders through dividends since the initial public offering in 2012,” Lao added.

D&L posted net income of P2.9 billion for 2017, up 11 percent from the previous year, on higher sales volumes and margin expansion in the highmargin specialty products segment.

For the first quarter of 2018, it reported net income of P744 million, up 12.3 percent from the same period last year.

“With consistent profit growth, very low net borrowings and good cash flow generation, the company remains highly committed to its dividend policy of 50 percent payout ratio based on previous year’s recurring net income, with an option to declare special dividends,” D& L told the Philippine Stock Exchange.

As part of plans to expand capacity, D&L is set to build a new manufacturing plant within a special economic zone in Batangas under the Philippine Economic Zone Authority (PEZA).

The company has set a profit target of P3.2 billion for this year, up 10 percent from last year.