President Duterte's commitment of the government to increase infrastructure spending and the move towards cleaner energy prompted me to look at First Philippine Holdings Corporation (FPH).

FPH is a 54-yr old diversified holding company with principal interests in the areas of energy, infrastructure, real estate and manufacturing.

Basic common sense tells me that YES, the government will have a significant impact on FPH.

But the real question I want to answer is; Is FPH the right company to invest in?

Let's take a good look into it.

The stock looks undervalued but I want to know how the earnings performed for the last 10 years. Honestly, I was a bit disappointed how the earnings performed.

The Net Margins are also disappointing. Just look at the years 2008, 2011 and 2013. The earnings are almost at break even point.

I like how the Revenue has increased consistently. But the Net Earnings isn't as consistent as the Revenue. The earnings are unpredictable that's what I can say. There’s a point where in 2010, EPS and Net Margins went up as high as 40.62 and 38.66% respectively then would drop at 3.07 and 3.01%. Now, I wonder why it is like that.

Further research indicates that the Net Income (attributable to equity holders of the Parent) in the above mentioned years decreased because of these reasons:

These losses are not directly connected with the company’s main operations but it greatly affects the bottom line. This makes the company’s earnings unpredictable to me.

I investigated their finance costs and found out that FPH carries a lot of debt.

Interest Expenses are historically high in the 10-year period. In 2008, FPH paid a large 76% of their Operating Profits to Interest Expenses (due to EDC acquisition). Last year, FPH paid 40% of their profits and these are caused by increase in their loan balances.

Debt to Equity is not healthy either.

Because of their high long-term debts, this makes FPH look like a not-so-ideal company to invest in.

Although the D/E ratio looks bad, the historical Current Ratios indicate that short-term liabilities are effectively managed.

This is also evident when you look at their Cash. Cash is always greater than the amount of short-term debt for the given period except in 2007 and 2008.

In these years, FPH made major acquisitions and took on loans that resulted to a decrease in cash and increase in debt. These are:

I looked at their debts in a different perspective and I saw that the Total Debts are higher compared to their Retained Earnings.

The only exception is the years from 2010 up to 2012. All I can say is that FPH has a lot of debts and I don’t like it.

If you’ll ask me what I like about FPH, it’s the company’s Cash Flow.

It is evident that they pay out their loans and their FCF has always been positive except in 2014 where Capital Expenditures amounted to ₱30.1 Billion versus Cash From Operating Activities amounting to ₱26.3 Billion. The way cash flows in the company is healthy. They always maintain a surplus of Cash.

Here are the Historical RoE, RoA and RoIC.

FPH showed an average10-yr RoE, RoA and RoIC of 14%, 4% and 10% respectively but if you’ll look at the last 3-yr average, the company performed poorly. You can also see the inconsistencies. There are periods when the returns are high and there are periods when it’s overly low which is not good in my opinion.

FPH is a good company to invest in if you want to bet in the energy and the infrastructure sector for the next 6 years of the Duterte administration.

Here's what I like about the company;

Here's what I don't like about FPH;

In my opinion, I think the best price to buy this stock today is at around ₱69.41/share. This is based on the 10-yr average Return on Equity of 14.06%. But if you’ll base it on the recent 3-yr average, this puts it at a valuation of ₱145.01/share which is almost the same as COL Financial’s fair value estimate of ₱140/share.

Today’s closing price is at ₱71.75/share which equates to a 13.70% rate of return. I recommend accumulating shares around these price benchmarks.

This concludes my FPH stock review. Do you think that FPH is a promising stock because of the bullish sentiment on infrastructure and energy sector? Do you think that FPH has a huge upside potential? I want to hear what you have to say.

Please don’t hesitate to leave your comments below.

Happy investing!