the Outsider - PSE Points to Ponder

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How Ramon Ang Revived Petron Before the Iran War Shook Oil Markets

Before the war in Iran jolted crude markets and threatened fresh supply disruptions across the Middle East in early 2026, Ramon S. Ang had already done something harder at home: he had begun to restore Petron Corp.’s earnings power. In its 2025 annual report, the San Miguel-controlled refiner and fuel retailer laid out what it called its strongest performance to date—one built not on booming oil prices or surging revenues, but on tighter operations, stronger domestic sales, better refinery economics, and a more disciplined balance sheet. The headline number was hard to miss. Petron’s consolidated net income climbed 84% to ₱15.63 billion in 2025 from ₱8.47 billion a year earlier, while operating income rose 28% to ₱37.32 billion . Net income attributable to equity holders reached ₱14.75 billion , and earnings per share improved to ₱1.12 from ₱0.30 in 2024. For a company long defined by refining volatility, leverage, and swings in oil prices, 2025 looked less like a cyclical ...

SM’s Cash Machine vs. Ayala’s Cleanup Trade

The simplest way to read two of the Philippines’ biggest conglomerates is not through malls, banks or telecom towers, but through the parent company balance sheet — the top of the house where dividend income arrives, debt sits, and shareholder payouts are decided. On that score, SM Investments Corp. and Ayala Corp. ended 2025 in sharply different places: SM looked like the steadier cash-harvesting holdco, while Ayala looked like the more obvious deleveraging story. Start with the parent-company balance sheet. Ayala’s standalone parent assets were ₱274.6 billion at end-2025, against liabilities of ₱96.2 billion and equity of ₱178.4 billion. SM Investments’ standalone parent assets were slightly smaller at ₱268.1 billion, but liabilities were lower at ₱82.0 billion, and equity was higher at ₱186.1 billion. That means Ayala was marginally bigger at the parent level by assets, but SM entered 2026 with the cleaner capital base — more equity and less liability drag. Both companies...

Ayala’s Quiet Engine Is Upstream Cash — and BPI Looks Like the Biggest Pipe

By any measure, Ayala Corp.’s 2025 story was about more than headline profit. It was also about the mechanics of a holding company that still lives, first and foremost, on cash sent upstairs. For all the attention paid to Ayala Corp.’s record earnings in 2025, the more telling development may have happened one level above the operating businesses. At the parent company, dividend income climbed to ₱22.964 billion from ₱19.303 billion, a reminder that Ayala, as a holding company, ultimately depends on cash distributions from subsidiaries, associates, and joint ventures to fund debt service, shareholder payouts, and new investments. The rise suggests a sturdier parent-level cash engine at a time when management has been emphasizing portfolio discipline and balance-sheet resilience. Ayala’s 2025 Integrated Report said the group entered 2026 focused on “sharpening” the portfolio and reinforcing financial resilience, while also highlighting that 75% of parent debt is fixed-rate a...

The Sys Saw SM Investments’ 2025 Earnings Quality as Fairly Strong

A cleaner read of SM Investments Corp.’s 2025 numbers suggests that the conglomerate’s most dependable engines — banking, mall rentals, and food retail — did most of the work, while weaker residential sales and pressure in discretionary businesses kept a lid on how much faster profit could grow. SM Investments Corp. delivered another year of record profit in 2025, but the more revealing story was not the headline growth rate. It was the composition of that growth. Consolidated earnings rose 10% to ₱90.5 billion on revenues of ₱681.7 billion, up 4% , and the group’s earnings mix remained anchored by banking at 49% , followed by property at 27% , retail at 18%, and portfolio investments at 6% . Those numbers point to a conglomerate whose profit base is increasingly shaped by recurring and essential-demand businesses rather than by the most economically sensitive parts of its portfolio. That matters because SM is often shorthand for malls and shopping, a proxy for Philippine...

Atlas Mining, the mining company that SM Investments is considering selling

Atlas Consolidated Mining & Development Corp. has become an awkward asset at a moment when its biggest blue-chip shareholder appears to be rethinking what belongs inside a modern Philippine conglomerate. In early March, SM Investments Corp. said it was weighing a reduction or possible exit from its Atlas stake, casting the miner as an outlier in a portfolio built around banking, property, retail, logistics, and energy. The timing is telling: copper and gold prices have been firm, but Atlas itself has spent the past two years slipping from profit into loss, even as its operating business continues to throw off cash. Atlas’ 2025 results show why a sale can be framed both as an opportunistic disposal and as a strategic reset. Revenue fell to ₱17.19 billion in 2025 from ₱18.63 billion in 2024 and ₱18.87 billion in 2023, extending a two-year slide in the top line. The company posted a net loss of about ₱246 million in 2025, slightly worse than the ₱231 million loss booked in ...

Before First Gen’s “Poison Pill,” There Was PLDT’s

In Philippine boardroom warfare, the concept didn’t arrive with Federico “Piki” Lopez. It had an earlier, rougher incarnation in the battle for PLDT, where Antonio “Tonyboy” Cojuangco used a poison pill not simply to fend off raiders, but to make himself the indispensable counterparty in any serious bid for control. The term is back in circulation because of First Gen Corp., where the Lopez family’s internal feud has dragged a modern version of the tactic into public view. First Gen confirmed in April that its agreements with Enrique Razon Jr.’s Prime Infrastructure contain change-of-management-control provisions that would let Prime Infra force a buyout of First Gen’s hydropower stake at a 25% discount if Piki and his team were removed during a defined period; First Gen added that the gas-plant stake could also be sold at the same discount if the clause were exercised. First Gen said those provisions were requested by Prime Infra and reflected the counterparty’s confide...

Ayala’s Globe Eases Network Spending, but Debt Looks Like the First Call on Cash

The Ayala group appears to be entering a new phase at Globe Telecom Inc.: after years of heavy network buildout, the Philippine carrier is finally easing capital expenditure. But rather than immediately channeling that breathing room into richer shareholder payouts, the numbers suggest Globe may first use the savings to defend its balance sheet and manage a costlier capital stack. Ayala Corp., one of Globe’s two principal shareholders, owned 30.64% of the company’s common shares as of Dec. 31, 2025, alongside Singapore Telecom International Pte. Ltd., which held 43.36% . That makes Globe’s capital-allocation choices especially relevant to one of the Philippines’ most closely watched conglomerates, whose listed units are often judged on dividend discipline as much as on growth. There is a clear reason investors are focusing on the spending cycle. Globe’s cash capex fell 18% to ₱46.2 billion in 2025 from ₱56.2 billion in 2024 , with management saying the figure was in line ...