By Chelsey Keith P. Ignacio, Special Features Writer

BEYOND BRINGING NEWS on business and the economy through print and online platforms, BusinessWorld also publishes a comprehensive source of financial information of the largest stock corporations in the country.

For 34 years now, BusinessWorld’s Top 1000 Corporations of the Philippines magazine has been providing a look at the financial performance of organizations that could be useful for readers and the corporate sector itself.

“Similar to how financial statements are used to assess a company’s financial health and earnings performance, the Top 1000 helps paint a picture on how the country’s corporate sector is doing as the former can be used as a proxy for the latter. In turn, the corporate sector can be used to gauge the health of the macroeconomy given its contribution to the economy in terms of output produced and jobs provided,” said Leo Jaymar G. Uy, BusinessWorld’s research head, in an interview.

The Top 1000 ranks private and public stock entities based on their latest annual gross revenue. The publication has a main ranking that assessed companies based on their parent-only financial statements; while a separate table shows the ranking of conglomerates, which recognized a parent company and its subsidiaries as one. 

Aside from the standing of corporations through their gross revenues, the publication also covers details such as net income, receivables, payables, and financial ratios.

BusinessWorld researchers use a “tickmarking” guide in their methodology for the Top 1000 publication, which is a way for them to identify items considered as the net sales, cost of sales, debt, or inventory in the financial statements since such items would depend on the industry where companies belong.

“For instance, it may be not clear whether a certain earnings item is part of its primary business activity or if it’s under ‘other income.’ The guide makes sure that we distinguish which is which given the firm’s primary business activity and its industry classification,” Mr. Uy explained, noting as well that line items in financial statements of companies may vary even they come from the same industry.

Such methodology, along with the information provided, for the Top 1000 constantly undergoes refinement. Hence, readers surely have observed how much the publication has changed since its first edition.

The most recent edition of Top 1000 provided financial details of the country’s biggest corporations in 2019, giving readers an overview of how these firms performed before experiencing the impacts of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) crisis.

The latest publication showed that these top 1,000 corporations made an overall gross revenue of P12.303 trillion and a combined income of P1.455 trillion in 2019.

This 4.7% increase in gross revenue from the P11.754 trillion in 2018 also presented that such growth has moved at a slow pace even before the pandemic.

Leading the top firms of 2019 was oil refiner and distributor Petron Corp., earning gross revenue of P323.273 billion, though decreasing by 10.5% compared to its P361.353 billion in 2018. Its profit also fell from P6.337 billion in 2018 to P114.923 million in 2019.

Manila Electric, Co. (Meralco) came in second. The power distributor company improved its gross revenue by 3.7% to P309.090 billion in 2019. Its net income, which was at P20.644 billion, declined by around 15%.

The third spot was received by Pilipinas Shell Petroleum Corp. with gross revenue of P219.779 billion in 2019, a marginal decrease of 0.03% compared to its 2018 gross revenue. The company experienced a 10.7% rise in net income with its P5.62 billion.

Completing the top 10 firms in 2019 were BDO Unibank, Inc. (P196.226 billion); PMFTC, Inc. (P172.765 billion); Toyota Motor Philippines Corp. (P160.532 billion); Mercury Drug Corp. (P160.180 billion); Philippine Airlines, Inc. (P154.532 billion); Toshiba Information Equipment (Philippines), Inc. (P139.523 billion); and Nestlé Philippines, Inc. (P125.102 billion).

Meanwhile, in the top 200 consolidated corporations, San Miguel Corp. (SMC) and subsidiaries came first with a 0.8% increase in gross revenue amounting to P1.068 trillion in 2019.

The second spot went to Top Frontier Investment Holdings, Inc., a top shareholder of San Miguel, with its gross revenue of P1.068 trillion that grew by 0.9%. Petron, which has P520.606 billion gross revenue that fell by 7.7%, occupied the third spot.

Conglomerates that also made it to the top 10 were SM Investments Corp. and subsidiaries (P506.295 billion); Mermac, Inc. and a subsidiary (P330.906 billion); Ayala Corp. and subsidiaries (P330.906 billion); Meralco and subsidiaries (P322.592 billion); San Miguel Food and Beverage, Inc. and subsidiaries (P313.803 billion); JG Summit Holdings, Inc. and subsidiaries (P307.596 billion); and GT Capital Holdings, Inc. and subsidiaries (P226.754 billion).

This financial information, as mentioned, is from 2019. Thus, the key findings of the latest Top 1000 would let the readers and organizations analyze the performance before COVID-19 hit businesses in the Philippines.

Seeing the significant impact that the crisis made on the economy in 2020, it could somehow give hints on the gross revenue and net income of several corporations in that year. These financial details of companies in time of COVID-19 would be presented on the upcoming edition of Top 1000.

“It’s safe to say a lot of these firms may experience a drop in revenue and net income (or at least, slower growth) if current developments are any indication. Given the 9.6% drop in the Philippine gross domestic product (GDP) in 2020, it would not be surprising to see a similar turnout for the big players given the fairly high correlation between macroeconomic performance and firm performance,” Mr. Uy said.

“Given what we already know of the performance of industries in the full-year GDP report and annual reports of listed firms, we already have an idea of which companies may likely see their earnings decline in 2020. The Top 1000 results will confirm and support that trend.”

As of now, BusinessWorld has yet to finalize the next Top 1000 lineup since the collection process is still ongoing. “Nevertheless, expect the same level of effort that BusinessWorld has put into the production of the Top 1000. Given the extraordinary times we’re living in, I hope readers would find this publication helpful in whatever purpose they will be using this for,” Mr. Uy expressed.

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