RFM sustains growth in Q3

RFM Corp., the food and beverage company of the Concepcion family, sustained its growth in the third quarter.

The company reported a 10 percent growth in both its net income and revenues to P836 million and P10.8 billion, respectively.

RFM president and CEO Jose Ma. Concepcion III said the different businesses contributed to the growth.

For instance, the institutional bread and flour units and consumer units comprising of Selecta Milk, Selecta Ice Cream, Fiesta and Royal Pasta and sauces performed well.

These business units led the double digit growth in topline.

Selecta Fortified Milk sales and ice cream and pasta continue to lead the topline expansion of the branded products, he said.

At the same time, the company’s institutional sales also continued to grow.

For this year, RFM has expanded its capital expenditures by P220 million on top of the previously reported P400 million approved a couple of months.

Concepcion said the additional capex would be used to expand the sauce and milk businesses to meet growing demand.

These businesses have been growing along with rising consumer demand in the Philippines, Concepcion said.

“RFM is quite bullish in its brands and businesses. We will continue to deploy the required funding to meet the growth in demand for our brands. To this end, we have a very strong cash position to back our capex.

In fact, aside from the 50 percent cash payout policy and ongoing share buyback, we want our new capex to hasten the improvement of the returns to our shareholders over the long run,” Concepcion said.

According to its profile, RFM was incorporated in 1957 as Republic Flour Mills Inc. The company today is a branded food and beverage company known for nurturing and growing heritage local brands like Pop Cola and Sarsi, under its previous subsidiary Cosmos Bottling Corp., and Selecta ice cream, now under the joint venture with Unilever.