Cosco Capital, Lopez Holdings post robust Q1 profit growth

Two holdings firms led by some of the country’s most prominent business families reported double digit jump in profits during the first quarter of the year.

Cosco Capital Inc., the retail holding firm of Lucio Co, posted a record net income of P1.08 billion, up 12 percent from the P965 million recorded a year earlier.

Consolidated revenues rose 12 percent year-on-year to P28.79 billion.

Retail business segment from Puregold, the second largest grocery retailer in the Philippines, and S& R contributed 86 percent of the total revenues followed by specialty retail business segment from Liquigaz and Office Warehouse (nine percent).

Cosco said the rest of its revenues came from liquor distribution and real estate leasing business units.

“Our company is well positioned to capture the growth from the strong consumer demand and we believe that we can achieve another record year of profits in 2016,” Cosco president Leonardo Dayao said.

Meanwhile, the holding company of the Lopez family reported a net income of P1.35 billion, 24 percent higher than the previous year ’ s P1.09 billion. Revenues of Lopez Holdings, however, fell 11 percent to P22.72 billion.

Lopez Holdings attributed the growth in net income to the steady performance of investees First Philippine Holdings Corp (FPH) and ABS-CBN Corp.

FPH posted a 26 percent year-on-year increase in net income while ABS-CBN saw its earnings rise by 34 percent.

Lopez Holdings owns 46 percent of FPH and has a 56 percent economic interest in ABS-CBN.