PSALM posts ₱98.37-B revenues in 2019

By Myrna M. Velasco – March 13, 2020, 10:00 PM
from Manila Bulletin

By fervidly chasing the unpaid obligations and delinquent accounts of customers, state-run Power Sector Assets and Liabilities Management Corporation (PSALM) reported that it was able to log ₱98.37 billion worth of revenues last year.

In a report by PSALM President and CEO Irene Joy B. Garcia to Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III, she fleshed out that revenues and receivables had been fetched from “privatization proceeds, power sales, collections from delinquent and overdue accounts and proceeds from universal charges.”

Given that scale of cash flowing into the firm’s coffers last year, PSALM further indicated that it so far trimmed financial obligations by ₱27.18 billion. On current power sales, PSALM said its collection efficiency last year was at a high of 93.5-percent – and that afforded it to rake in ₱11.76 billion from customers.

“PSALM was able to collect ₱4.32 billion in
overdue and delinquent accounts by offering borrowers flexible payment schemes through restructuring agreements or special payment agreements,” the company chief executive said.

Such magnitude of collections, according to the PSALM president, surpassed the company’s self-imposed target of ₱4.12 billion last year.

Garcia explained “these flexible payment schemes encouraged entities and electric cooperatives to viably settle their outstanding obligations.”

On the sphere of universal charge collections, Garcia emphasized that the company fetched as colossal as P74.66 billion for universal charge-stranded contract costs (UC-SCC); and P7.63 billion for UC on stranded debts.

The upturn in the company’s collection of financial obligations from customers warranted it to snip its principal liabilities to P422.011 billion last year from a heftier P449.19 billion in 2018.

The company expounded that such decline in financial obligations is equivalent to 6.05-percent, which somehow topped the company’s original debt pruning target of P15.21 billion.

The company chief executive said “through cost-cutting measures and additional revenue collections, PSALM was able to drastically lower its overhead expenses to just 4.67-percent in relation to its total income due,” qualifying further that such was “a big improvement of nearly twice its goal of 8.92-percent.”

The government-run firm similarly surpassed its goal of attaining 4.88-percent earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) margin on its remaining power assets.

For this 2020, she noted that PSALM’s desired outcome is a net reduction to P11.943 billion of its maturing obligations.