Cosco Capital Inc., the listed holding company associated with the Lucio L. Co group, delivered a sharp rise in parent-company earnings in 2025, underscoring a familiar reality for investors: beneath the conglomerate structure, the cash engine remains grocery retail. The company’s separate financial statements show dividend income climbed to ₱3.90 billion in 2025 from ₱2.39 billion a year earlier, a roughly 63% increase that lifted parent-company net income to ₱3.84 billion from ₱2.37 billion in 2024. For Cosco, the parent company’s income statement is less a story of operating margins than of upstreamed cash. As a holding company, Cosco recognizes dividend income when its right to receive payment is established, and its investments in subsidiaries are carried at cost in the separate financial statements. That makes the parent accounts a clean window into which subsidiaries are actually sending cash upstairs. The answer in 2025 was clear: Puregold Price Club Inc. remained the core...
Manila Water Co., the utility chaired by billionaire Enrique K. Razon Jr., opened 2026 with the kind of earnings profile investors usually want from a regulated water business: higher tariffs, stable demand, better operating efficiency and stronger contributions from domestic subsidiaries. But beneath the headline profit growth, the quarter also marked a balance-sheet reset, as the company absorbed the financing consequences of its WawaJVCo acquisition. The company’s first-quarter results showed net income attributable to Manila Water shareholders rising 24% to ₱4.42 billion , while consolidated net income climbed 30% to ₱4.84 billion . Total revenues increased 11% to ₱10.63 billion , and EBITDA rose 14% to ₱7.87 billion , lifting EBITDA margin to about 74% . The earnings momentum was led by the East Zone concession and WawaJVCo, now reviewed by management as a combined operating segment after Manila Water completed its acquisition of WawaJVCo in September 2025. The segment’s com...