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Disclaimer: This is for informational purposes and is not investment advice. Figures are taken from company disclosures and exchange data; valuation ratios include the author’s calculations based on cited inputs.
There are rallies that announce themselves with fireworks, and then there are rallies that quietly rearrange the scoreboard for everyone who had the good sense—or the patience—to already be on the field.
International Container Terminal Services, Inc. (ICT) has been the loud kind lately. At ₱680 a share (as of Feb. 20, 2026), it’s the sort of valuation that doesn’t just lift a stock—it reshapes the pecking order of portfolios that hold it. And as ICT climbs, the spotlight naturally falls on the usual suspects: the founders, the nominee accounts, the insiders whose names the market knows by heart.
But one of the most interesting beneficiaries isn’t a port operator at all.
It’s A. Soriano Corporation (ANS)—a holding company that, on most trading days, sits in the background while its investments do the talking. One of those investments just happens to be ICT: 18,850,637 shares, which is roughly 0.92% of the company, based on the Top 100 stockholders list.
That number doesn’t sound like a control stake—and it isn’t. But in a market where size is often measured in liquidity and narrative, it’s plenty large enough to matter in pesos.
A stake that gets louder as prices go up
At ₱680, ANS’ ICT holding translates to a market value of roughly: 18,850,637 shares × ₱680 ≈ ₱12.82 billion
That’s the kind of figure that changes how investors should read a holding company. Not because ANS will suddenly become “about ports,” but because a single name can swing the optics of the balance sheet and the mood of earnings season when valuations are moving fast.
And ANS is not shy about the importance of ICT when the numbers cooperate. In its FY2024 Annual Report, management explicitly pointed to ICTSI as a “significant contributor” to the exceptional performance of its financial holdings and even noted ICTSI’s strong price move during the year.
That’s the key phrase—financial holdings—because it tells you where the rally shows up.
Paper gains: the kind of “earnings” that arrive without a sale
Here’s where the accounting matters. ANS carries its listed equity portfolio (which includes ICT) under fair value through profit or loss (FVPL)—meaning the company measures those investments at market value, and changes in valuation flow through the income statement rather than being tucked away quietly elsewhere.
So when ICT’s price goes up, ANS doesn’t need to sell anything to look like it “earned” something. The gain exists on paper—real in economic terms, unrealized in cash terms—and it can still boost reported profitability because FVPL runs through P&L.
You see that mechanism in ANS’ disclosures. In FY2024, ANS reported a sizable gain on an increase in market values of FVPL investments at the consolidated level—an aggregated line that reflects the lift from quoted equities as they repriced. And management’s narrative doesn’t leave much doubt about which holding did most of the heavy lifting: ICTSI is singled out as a major driver of that investment performance.
This is what markets do at extremes: they turn patient positioning into headline results. And they turn “boring” balance-sheet stakes into something that reads, for a moment, like operating momentum.
But there’s a second benefit—less glamorous, more dependable.
The dividend stream: cash that doesn’t care about sentiment
If paper gains are the applause, dividends are the cash register.
ICT declared a cash dividend of ₱14.16 per share (approved March 6, 2025; payable March 28, 2025). If ANS holds 18,850,637 shares, the annualized “what this stake can throw off” math becomes very tangible: 18,850,637 shares × ₱14.16 ≈ ₱266.9 million
Call it about ₱267 million of gross dividends that can accrue to ANS from a dividend of that size.
In other words, ICT doesn’t just lift ANS when prices are euphoric. It can also contribute when the market is boring—because dividends are boring by design. And for a holding company, that’s the point: cash dividends help pay the bills, fund new bets, and support shareholder distributions, even when capital markets are less forgiving.
ANS’ own filings show that dividends from investments are a real component of results (reported in aggregate, not issuer-by-issuer). But for readers looking at ICT’s surge, the more intuitive takeaway is this: ANS owns a slice of a compounding machine, and the machine keeps paying as it compounds.
So who’s really “winning” when ICT wins?
ICT’s rally is obviously great news for ICT shareholders. But it also creates a second-order effect in the market—a redistribution of bragging rights among companies that hold ICT as an investment rather than as an operating asset.
ANS is one of those companies. Its ICT stake is large enough to matter, and its accounting treatment means market moves can echo through reported earnings in a way that investors notice. Add the dividend stream—real cash, not just mark-to-market optics—and you get a holding-company story that’s suddenly easier to tell in one sentence: As ICT’s valuation soars, ANS is quietly getting richer—on paper through FVPL gains, and in cash through dividends.
The market will keep debating whether ICT at these levels is “too expensive” or “still justified.” That’s what markets do. But the ANS angle is less about predicting ICT’s next tick and more about recognizing what’s already happened: a well-placed minority stake can become a major narrative lever when a blue-chip compounder enters a new valuation regime.
And sometimes, the best winners aren’t the ones making the noise. They’re the ones who were already holding.
We’ve been blogging for free. If you enjoy our content, consider supporting us!
Disclaimer: This is for informational purposes and is not investment advice. Figures are taken from company disclosures and exchange data; valuation ratios include the author’s calculations based on cited inputs.
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