MANILA, Nov 5 — Philippine conglomerate San Miguel Corp posted a 24 per cent increase in third-quarter net income, boosted by double-digit revenue growth in its liquor business.

San Miguel, which sells nine out of 10 beers in the Philippines, is likely to benefit from election related spending in the current quarter and early next year ahead of May presidential polls.

Profits at the Philippines’ third-largest listed firm have been boosted this year by one-off sales of substantial stakes in key operating units, part of a strategic shift into higher-growth sectors such as power, telecoms and toll roads.

The company earned 97.7 billion pesos (RM7 billion) from selling a 43 per cent stake in its flagship San Miguel Brewery to Japan’s Kirin Holdings and 38.8 billion pesos from selling its domestic beer brands and assets to its brewery unit in April.

San Miguel owns 27 per cent of Manila Electric (Meralco) and controls about 43 per cent with its allies. It wants to take a majority stake to support its entry into telecoms, a venture it set up with partner Qatar Telecommunications Co.

Last week, San Miguel’s business partner Henry Sy Jr., son of the Philippines’ leading tycoon, offered to buy a Meralco stake held by the Lopez business family for US$940 million (RM3.22 billion).

The Lopez family is set to decide today either to accept the offer from the Sy group or that from another Meralco shareholder, the PLDT group.

San Miguel said in a statement January-September net income was 57 billion pesos, up 173 per cent from a year earlier.

It said net income without one-off items was 7.61 billion pesos in the nine months, up 6 per cent from a year ago.

Stripping out reported first-half net income of 55.6 billion pesos, San Miguel’s third-quarter net profit was 1.4 billion pesos compared with 1.13 billion pesos a year earlier, based on Reuters’ calculations.

Analysts do not give quarterly forecasts for San Miguel and a mean estimate of 11.7 billion pesos net income this year, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S, has been thrown off by the company’s huge asset sales.

The company also said its flagship San Miguel Brewery posted net income of 7.2 billion pesos in the first nine months of the year, up 2 per cent from the same period of 2008, said analysts who attended a company results briefing.

San Miguel’s B shares open to all investors closed up 2.3 per cent and its A shares exclusive to locals climbed 3.1 per cent, outpacing 1.3 per cent gain in the main index. — Reuters