According to SBMA Chairman Roberto Garcia, unaudited figures from the agency’s finance group placed the agency’s January-to-June net income at P687 million, showing a significant improvement from P337 million for the same period last year.
“Revenues for the first semester were pretty good as well,” Garcia said, referring to a 15 percent revenue increase from last year’s level.
Sharing the agency’s operating revenue pie were port services and regulatory fees, which increased by 29 percent and 24 percent, respectively over the same period last year.
Also contributing substantially to the agency’s financial health, according to Garcia, were a 33 percent build-up in current assets, including a 38 percent increase in cash assets, and a 56 percent increase in miscellaneous assets such as prepaid expenses, guaranty deposits, mobilization funds given in advance to contractors, and others.
Tight control was also implemented as far as operating expenses were concerned.
“Meanwhile, SBMA’s earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) increased by 18 percent. This means that the agency is not only pursuing effective strategic initiatives, but is implementing them efficiently as well,” Garcia added.
The top SBMA executive also noted that the first semester saw a much improved business climate in the Freeport, which led to better bottom lines for the Subic agency and its locators, as well as the start-up operations of many new ones and a much bigger workforce that would soon breach the 100,000-mark.
With this profit increase, Garcia said the SBMA is “looking forward to a more positive outcome to further strengthen and sustain the agency’s financial turnaround over the past three years record performances.
“We need to provide funds for our strategic plans, including the implementation of the long-overdue salary increases for SBMA employees and the procurement of badly needed equipment for security, maintenance and infrastructure development work,” Garcia said.
