042607: Meralco turns around with P532-M profit

 

 

By MYRNA M. VELASCO The profitability of giant utility firm Manila Electric Company (Meralco) jumped significantly by 171.1 percent during the first quarter this year with net income of P532 million, completely wiping out the P748 million loss it had in the same period last year. The company’s financial statement submitted to the Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE) likewise indicated that its "unrecoverable purchased power" from January to March, 2007 was slashed to just P494 million way lower than the P972 million it registered in the same months in 2006. However, it was shown that the company’s cash balance drastically skidded to P3.793 billion as of end-March; compared to a healthier P11.912 billion a year ago. The company’s capital expenditures (capex), on the other hand, climbed significantly by 22.5 percent to P1.295 billion in the first quarter as compared to P1.057 billion last year. Meraclo said that provisioning for probable losses was already stopped starting January 2007 with the favorable ruling of the Supreme Court on its unbundling case handed down December 8, 2006. The company emphasized that the factors which shored up its profitability in the first quarter include the 3.7 percent sales growth climbing to 6,039 gigawatt hours; and the 49.1 percent decrease in unrecoverable purchased power to P494.46 million. "On the robust electricity volume growth of 3.7 percent, revenues increased by 15.8 percent from P41.61 billion last year to P48.20 billion this year," the company said.

 

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