the Outsider - PSE Points to Ponder

  ABS-CBN and DITO once stood on opposite sides of the Philippine corporate fate. Now, both are being kept aloft by creditors, suppliers, and hope. There is a certain symmetry in corporate misfortune. In 2020, ABS-CBN, the Lopez family’s media empire, lost the congressional franchise that had long underpinned its free-to-air broadcasting business after a House committee voted 70-11 to deny its bid for renewal. Around the same era, DITO Telecommunity, backed by Dennis Uy’s Udenna group and China Telecom, was being cast as the disruptive third telco that would break the Globe-PLDT duopoly and bring competition to the Philippine connectivity market.  Six years later, the tables have not so much turned as collapsed inward. ABS-CBN is no longer the mighty broadcaster whose franchise became a national political drama. DITO is no longer merely the insurgent challenger promising cheaper data and faster speeds. Both have become variations of the same Philippine corporate specimen:...

In a softer property market, Robinsons Land’s recurring-income model looked sturdier than Ayala Land’s larger but more development-heavy franchise. In Philippine property, size has long conferred prestige. Ayala Land, Inc. (ALI) is the country’s great estate builder: a trillion-peso balance sheet, a portfolio stitched together across residential towers, estates, malls, offices, hotels, logistics parks, and an increasingly sophisticated REIT ecosystem. Robinsons Land Corporation (RLC) is smaller, less sprawling, and less frequently cast as the sector’s bellwether. Yet in the first quarter of 2026, the less glamorous company had the better quarter. RLC’s revenues rose, profits rose, cash flow improved, leverage fell, and liquidity strengthened; ALI, though still the larger franchise, was pulled down by a softer property-development cycle and higher financing charges. The headline numbers tell the story briskly. RLC’s consolidated revenues increased 11% year-on-year to ₱12.28bn , while ...

  Residential sales are quickening, financing costs are easing, and the balance sheet is flush. But the price of growth is showing up in margins. Robinsons Land Corporation entered 2026 with the air of a property company that has learned to enjoy several kinds of weather. In the first quarter, consolidated revenues rose by 11% year on year to ₱12.28bn , helped by a sturdier mall business, resilient offices, brisker hotel trade, and, most strikingly, a jump in residential sales. Net income climbed 9% to ₱4.40bn . Yet the result was less exuberant when viewed through the eyes of common shareholders: net income attributable to the parent rose by just 2% to ₱3.54bn , and earnings per share inched up to ₱0.74 from ₱0.72 .  The headline, then, is not simply that Robinsons Land is growing. It is that the composition of its growth is changing. Its recurring-income machine remains formidable: rental income still accounted for 48% of revenues , increasing 5% to ₱5.87bn . But the livelie...

  MerryMart shareholders are being asked to choose before the lights are fully on. The SEC and PSE should not let that pass. In a well-functioning market, a tender offer should sharpen a shareholder’s choice. Sell, hold, or demand more. In MerryMart Consumer Corp.’s case, the choice has instead become oddly murky. DoubleDragon Corp. is offering to acquire MM shares at ₱0.48 apiece , half in cash and half in newly issued DoubleDragon shares valued at ₱9.30 each , after agreeing to buy a 35% block from Injap Investments Inc. and launching a mandatory tender offer for the remaining 65% of MM shares. The tender offer period runs from May 18 to June 16, 2026 , with settlement scheduled for June 24, 2026 .  Yet as shareholders weigh whether to tender, the most basic instruments of judgment appear to be missing. As of this writing, PSE EDGE’s financial reports page shows MerryMart’s latest annual figures as fiscal year ended December 31, 2024 , while its latest quarterly financia...

DoubleDragon’s tender offer gives MM shareholders an exit. For many, it also turns a paper loss into something harder to ignore. When MerryMart Consumer Corp. listed in June 2020, the pitch was simple, timely, and seductive: a home-grown grocery chain, backed by Edgar “Injap” Sia II’s reputation for scaling Mang Inasal, would ride the pandemic-era appetite for essential retail and roll out a national network of stores. The company sold 1.594bn primary shares at ₱1.00 apiece , raising about ₱1.6bn in gross proceeds , with the proceeds earmarked for store expansion, distribution centers, and working capital. There were no selling shareholders in the IPO; this was a growth-capital story, not an exit.  Six years later, that story has been repriced. DoubleDragon Corporation has launched a tender offer for MerryMart shares at ₱0.48 per share , following its planned acquisition of 2.658bn MM shares , or 35% of MerryMart, from Injap Investments Inc. The tender offer covers up to 4.937bn s...

  At SM Prime, the slowdown is a bruise. At Ayala Land, it is closer to the bone. The Philippine property cycle has turned less forgiving. But the pain is not being distributed evenly. In the first quarter of 2026, SM Prime Holdings and Ayala Land both showed the same basic symptom: weaker real-estate development sales. Yet their accounts tell very different stories. At SM Prime, the slump is being muffled by malls. At Ayala Land, it is moving quickly from the income statement to the cash flow statement and into the balance sheet. SM Prime’s real-estate sales fell to ₱7.76bn in Q1 2026 from ₱9.22bn a year earlier, a decline of roughly 16% . But rent rose to ₱21.61bn from ₱20.02bn , allowing total revenue to inch up to ₱33.28bn  while net income remained almost unchanged at ₱11.87bn . In other words, the developer inside SM Prime coughed; the landlord kept breathing.  Ayala Land’s figures are more exposed to the weather. Its real estate revenue fell to ₱36.25bn from ₱...

  The Filipino restaurant group is learning to do more with less. Investors now want proof that discipline can become cash. For years, restaurant chains in emerging markets were judged by a simple metric: how many new stores they could open. Bigger footprints meant bigger brands, and bigger brands promised operating leverage. Max’s Group, Inc. — the operator behind Max’s Restaurant, Pancake House, Yellow Cab, Krispy Kreme, and other familiar names — is now telling a different story. In the first quarter of 2026, the company’s pitch was not expansion, but discipline. The numbers bear that out. Systemwide sales inched up by 1.1% to ₱4.3 billion , while consolidated revenues rose 2.0% to ₱2.87 billion . Same-store sales growth remained positive at 4.2% , even as the group operated with a leaner store network. Management framed this as the product of a “disciplined approach toward quality and productivity” rather than a race to add outlets.  That is the encouraging part of the q...