the Outsider - PSE Points to Ponder

The most revealing number in Philippine media is not ratings, subscriber counts, or YouTube views. It is the share of each peso of revenue that survives the direct cost of making and delivering content. By that measure, the country’s two most storied television brands now inhabit very different worlds. In 2025,  GMA7 posted a gross profit margin of 50.97% , down only slightly from 52.37% in 2024. ABS-CBN managed 16.52% , a touch above 16.18% a year earlier. In plain terms, GMA kept a little over 50 centavos of gross profit from every peso of revenue, while ABS kept only about 16.5 centavos .  That gulf is not a quirk of accounting. It is a map of two business models. GMA remains the Philippines’ dominant free-to-air broadcaster, still benefiting from the old but lucrative economics of mass television: national reach, ratings leadership, and an advertising machine that continues to throw off high-margin revenue. Its 2025 consolidated revenue rose to about ₱18.12bn , while gr...

  For years, GMA Network looked like the great exception in Philippine television: the dominant free-to-air broadcaster, the perennial ratings leader, and a company whose dividends could make even indifferent investors pay attention. Yet its 2025 annual report suggests that the broader malaise afflicting television is no longer merely an industry abstraction. It is showing up in GMA7’s own numbers—most clearly in the slow erosion of its core recurring television advertising business , the economic engine that still powers the company.  That matters because television is not collapsing in one dramatic lurch. It is being worn down by habit. Filipino audiences are spending more time online, on social platforms, and with streaming and short-form video, even as broadcasters continue to command mass reach. Dentsu’s 2025 media trends report says 90% of Filipinos use the internet daily and 82% use social media every day , while broader industry analysis points to digital media taking...

The striking thing about Shell Philippines’ 2025 performance is not that it sold less. It did. Net sales fell 5.1% to ₱231.1bn  from ₱243.6bn a year earlier, as lower pump prices pulled revenue down. What matters is what happened next: gross profit still rose 2% to ₱22.7bn , net income jumped 68.7% to ₱2.11bn , core earnings climbed 27.6% to ₱3.34bn , and EBITDA increased 8.8% to ₱11.99bn . For a company in a notoriously thin-margin, hypercompetitive business, this was not a mere cyclical rebound. It was evidence of a business that had become more disciplined, more selective, and—most importantly—more financially coherent. That coherence is easiest to see in cash. Shell Pilipinas generated ₱10.69bn in operating cash flow in 2025, up from ₱7.47bn in 2024, and swung to a free-cash-flow surplus of ₱2.1bn , from a ₱1.6bn deficit the year before. Management attributed the improvement to tighter inventory control, better logistics, stricter working-capital discipline, and more select...

  In corporate finance, there is a simple rule: when a firm’s overheads exceed its gross profit, survival depends not on operations but on patience. By 2025, ABS‑CBN had crossed that line. The company reported a gross profit margin of 16.52% , producing gross profit of roughly ₱2.6 billion on consolidated revenues of ₱15.85 billion , even as revenues declined 9% year‑on‑year . Against this, administrative, corporate, and support costs remained structurally larger—helping drive a net loss of ₱4.72 billion and a net income margin of –29.76% for the year . In a normal business, that arithmetic ends the discussion. Yet ABS‑CBN continues to operate, raising a different question: for how long will its financiers—among them institutions associated with the Aboitizes and the Ayalas—continue to forbear? A Cost Base Built for a Bigger Company ABS‑CBN’s overhead problem is not subtle. The firm remains profitable at the gross level, but general and administrative expenses, together with per...

On the surface, RFM still looks like the sort of company income investors are meant to love. In 2025, the group lifted revenue to ₱22.33 billion , up 3% from 2024, while operating income rose 8% to about ₱1.89 billion , net income climbed 14% to ₱1.62 billion , and EBITDA improved to about ₱2.69 billion . Liquidity also appeared comfortable, with the current ratio improving to 1.32x from 1.27x . At the parent-company level—the level that matters most for dividend declarations—sales rose to ₱15.23 billion , while net income increased to ₱1.75 billion and earnings per share improved to ₱0.52 from ₱0.46 . The board has rewarded shareholders accordingly. RFM declared ₱1.5 billion in cash dividends in 2025 , up from ₱1.3 billion in 2024 and ₱850 million in 2023 , maintaining a pattern of regular payouts through the year. At the parent-company level, that amounted to a payout of roughly 85%–86% of net income ; on some consolidated summaries in the annual report, the effective payout looke...

There are years when a property developer dazzles with ambition, and years when it impresses by restraint. For Megaworld, 2025 belonged to the latter category. The company still grew: consolidated revenues rose to ₱85.87bn , net income climbed to ₱24.06bn , and income attributable to the parent reached ₱21bn . But the more telling story was not simply that the developer sold more. It was that it emerged sturdier—less leveraged, less burdened by financing costs, and more able to fund itself from within. The numbers tell the tale of a balance sheet being quietly repaired. Interest-bearing loans and borrowings fell to ₱83.03bn in 2025 from ₱89.99bn a year earlier. Debt-to-equity improved to 0.34 times from 0.39 times , while net debt-to-equity eased to 0.27 times from 0.32 times . The current ratio edged up to 3.54 from 3.43 , a reminder that liquidity was moving in the right direction even as the group continued to spend on projects. That deleveraging showed up most clearly where in...

  Two former allies sold a bank together. Their heirs now offer a study in how family capitalism can fail in opposite ways. Kapitan Geny Lopez and John Gokongwei were once close business allies in the practical, old-Philippine-capitalism sense of the term: at PCIBank, Mr Lopez served as chairman, Mr Gokongwei as vice-chairman, and the two families were widely understood to be the bank’s principal shareholders and decision-makers before its sale in 1999. Their joint exit, part of a record-setting ₱31.9bn transaction that led to Equitable PCI Bank, looked at the time like a textbook redeployment of capital—an elegant retreat from banking into supposedly more strategic pursuits.  In retrospect, that sale reads less like an ending than a fork in the road. Both clans have since run into trouble in the pet businesses of their forefathers: ABS-CBN for the Lopezes, petrochemicals for the Gokongweis. Both businesses carry the emotional charge that only founding projects do. Yet the sim...