Aboitiz Power income falls 32% to P3.3-B in 3rd quarter

By Myrna M. Velasco – November 4, 2020, 1:14 PM
from Manila Bulletin

With depressed power demand because of the niggling impact of the coronavirus pandemic, the consolidated net income of Aboitiz Power Corporation had dipped 32-percent to P3.3 billion in this year’s third quarter versus P4.8 billion in the same period in 2019.

In the nine-month duration, the company’s profitability plunged by a wider scale of 48-percent to P7.0 billion, compared to heftier earnings of P13.5 billion posted in the same timeframe last year.

“Without the one-off gains, the company’s core net income for the first nine months of 2020 was P6.5 billion, 53-percent lower than the P13.7 billion recorded during the same period last year,” the firm said.

For its third quarter results alone, Aboitiz Power emphasized that it logged non-recurring gains of P305 million; which was a reverse of the P341 million non-recurring loss in the same period in 2019 – and that’s mainly due to the revaluation of US dollar-denominated financial obligations.

“Without the one-off gains from the revaluation of dollar-denominated liabilities, core net income for the third quarter was P3.0 billion, 42-percent lower year-on-year,” the Aboitiz firm said.

Overall, the company highlighted that its earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) had been on decline with “decreased demand due to the enforcement of Covid-19 community quarantines and from lower water inflow.”

Aboitiz Power similarly indicated that it incurred additional tax expenses following the expiration of the income tax holiday (ITH) incentives of its various power plants, primarily Therma South Inc., and GNPower Mariveles Energy Center Ltd. Co., which was formerly known as the GNPower Mariveles Coal Plant Ltd. Co.

Emmanuel V. Rubio, president and CEO of Aboitiz Power, noted “the pandemic has significantly impacted our financial performance,” although he qualified that despite such drawback, “we have sustained the delivery of the much-needed energy products and services to our customers and our communities.”

Onward, he specified that the focus of their investment trajectory will be on portfolio balancing – so that the ratio of its thermal-to-clean energy technologies would be on equal footing.

“Despite the challenges and uncertainties, our growth strategy for the next 10 years remains the same – to significantly grow our renewables portfolio and shift our overall energy mix into an almost 50:50 Cleanergy and thermal capacities by 2030,” Rubio stressed.

Meanwhile, on the power generation segment of the company’s business, reported EBITDA in the last nine months declined by 13-percent to P24.9 billion as against P28.7 billion a year ago.

That was against the backdrop of higher capacity sold within the last three quarters, which had been up by 9.0-percent to 3,394 megawatts vis-à-vis last year’s 3,123 MW.

“The variance was primarily due to reduced demand resulting from the enforcement of Covid-related community quarantines and to lower water inflow,” the company explained.

In the firm’s distribution segment, EBITDA marginally dropped by 3.0-percent to P5.8 billion compared to last year’s P6.0 billion in parallel nine-month stretch. “Energy sales decreased by 8.0-percent to 3,994 gigawatt-hours during the first three quarters of 2020 from 4,341 GWh in the corresponding period in 2019,” the company said, while emphasizing that “this was driven by lower energy consumption from the commercial and industrial customer segments resulting from the enforcement of the Covid-related community quarantines.