D&L INDUSTRIES, Inc.’s third-quarter net income climbed 18.5% to P910 million from P768 million a year earlier, driven by non-food sales, its top official said.
“In the third quarter, we hit a record,” D&L President and Chief Executive Officer Alvin D. Lao said during a media briefing on Tuesday. “In terms of net income, everything is higher versus previous periods.”
Third-quarter net income beat the company’s previous quarterly record set in 2018, which was at P874 million.
Its topline rose by 51.8% to P11.58 billion in the three months ending in September, from P7.63 billion a year ago. D&L had a 50-50 sales mix of high-margin specialty products and commodity products.
“Thankfully our business can be split into food and non-food. Food is the bigger part of our business; it’s roughly two-thirds of our revenues,” Mr. Lao said.
“The non-food side particularly oleochemicals and specialty plastics, ang laki ng increase nila (they had a big increase). They offset the weakness in food [sales],” he added.
JANUARY-SEPTEMBER RESULTSFor its nine-month financial performance, D&L also posted a record-high income of P2.54 billion, up by 17.4% from P2.16 billion in 2021.
“We hit record earnings for the first nine months of the year at P2.5 billion, this is compared to full-year earnings last year of P2.6 billion,” Mr. Lao said.
He said most of the profit came from oleochemicals and other specialty chemicals and plastics. Net income from these products rose by 53% and 12%, respectively.
The company’s top line rose by 57.5% to P33.9 billion for the nine-month period from P21.53 billion in 2021. Revenues from food ingredients grew by 68% while those from oleochemicals and other specialty chemicals climbed by 63%.
CAPITAL EXPENDITUREFrom 2019 to 2022, the company spent P9.42 billion as capital expenditure (capex), with around P400 million allocated for maintenance.
“Most of this is for the plant in Batangas [and] we planned to spend a little over P10 billion,” Mr. Lao said. “So, [capex is] roughly P1 billion from the fourth quarter this year until the end of next year.”
D&L is set to complete its expansion project in Tanauan, Batangas by January next year. Called First Industrial Township, it will sit on a 26-hectare lot and house plant-specific buildings, machinery and equipment.
“As of now, the timetable shows it’s in January,” Mr. Lao said. “We don’t know yet if there will be a delay. We don’t know yet what that delay will be, but within the next couple of weeks or months, we will check this to confirm.”
“Worst case if there will be a delay it’s going to be for a couple of months but the target is still the first half of January,” he added. — Justine Irish D. Tabile
