Aboitiz Power sees bright prospects; Veco bets on Cebu’s potential

BULLISH for 2nd half of 2017

EXECUTIVES of Aboitiz-owned business units especially in the power sector are optimistic on their growth in the second half of the year, owing to the Philippines’ robust economic performance.

Jim Aboitiz, Aboitiz Power (AP) distribution group chief operating officer, said prospects in the energy sector are good, especially now that the Philippine economy is among the fastest growing in the region.

“As the economy grows, power consumption grows. We are very optimistic,” he said on Thursday during a roundtable discussion with media last week, where executives of business units under publicly-listed Aboitiz Equity Ventures (AEV) were present.

In 2016, the Philippine economy grew by 6.8 percent from 5.9 percent the year before.

The AP official said the company has been growing at an average rate of 3 to 5 percent a year and that he expects the trend to remain for 2017.

Anton Perdices, chief operating officer at the Visayan Electric Company (Veco), said kilowatt-hour sales growth in the first five months of 2017 was not as high as during the same period in 2016.

The reason for this was that there were some events during the first half of 2016, such as the International Eucharistic Congress (IEC) and May Elections, that contributed to higher power consumption that could never be replicated this year.

Perdices added that it was also warmer last year compared to this year.

Nonetheless, the Veco official banked on Cebu’s tremendous potential for growth.

“So as long as the economy does well, the city is growing, construction is booming, new malls are opening, we will go with that,” he said.

Aside from the Aboitiz power units, the firm’s real estate arm, Andoni Aboitiz, AboitizLand president and chief executive officer, said AboitizLand is also doing good in the first five months of the year.

“Sales went beyond expectations,” Andoni Aboitiz said, adding that they also launched their first project in Luzon, Seafront Residences in Batangas, last March.

He said their industrial market is strong while commercial is steady.

He said the second half of 2017 will be dominated by launches since the main theme for this year will be execution.

Alberto Ignacio Jr., president and chief operating officer of Aboitiz Construction, said the company’s performance has been better so far this year than last year.

He said they remain positive for the second half of 2017, even while they are still only handling private projects at this time.

Ignacio said that with the many infrastructure projects the government is set to roll out under the current administration, they would also want to participate in the future.