EIA 2015 New Year’s Message

Dear Fellow Team Members,

My warmest greetings to all of you on this brand-new year! After that long Christmas holiday, I trust we are all recharged, ready and raring to go full speed ahead into what promises to be an exciting 2015 for the Aboitiz Group.

Last year, as we marked AEV’s 20th anniversary as a public company, we began taking bigger and bolder steps towards further strengthening our Group’s business strategy.

We in the Board and the senior management group did a thorough review of our current and future strategy, and reaffirmed the relevance of our Group’s strategic pillars. Moving forward, we will continue to grow and expand our business, increase stakeholder engagement, build human capital, and carry on execution excellence in everything we do.

As we explore more avenues for growth for all our existing businesses, we have added a fifth leg to our portfolio: infrastructure and infrastructure-related businesses. We are very optimistic of the gains this new core business will bring to the Group, amid the huge demand for infrastructure in both local and emerging markets across Asia. We will invest in this sector by participating in the government’s PPP projects and at the same time pursuing selective greenfield and acquisition opportunities.

Our current businesses will see an unfolding story of organic growth through new products, new channels, new markets, and new partnerships.

For AboitizPower, we will leverage on our technical expertise, maximizing local opportunities and expanding to selected international markets through greenfield development and acquisitions.

Our banking business is setting its sights on significant growth through product and channel expansion, and possible acquisition opportunities.

Our food business is pursuing aggressive growth through product expansion and strategic alliances with local and selected companies overseas. Last year, we went beyond our borders to enter the markets of Vietnam and Indonesia.

For land development, we will focus on market niches and distinctive offerings that are rapidly scalable at a national level. We will continue our efforts to build a land bank that will ensure a sustainable flow of projects and products. This year, our joint venture with Ayala will also break ground for the development of our Subangdaku property.

The AEV Corporate Center will continue to strengthen its role as a knowledge center, governance agent and business partner. We will assist business units by introducing best practices, implementing Group initiatives, providing value-added services, and defining Group policies and standards to bring everyone up to the same level of excellence.

With all of our strategic plans laid out, we are well on our way towards a more exhilarating journey of further growth. Everything we do, we will do it the Aboitiz Way. We will continue to be driven by our Passion for Better Ways…driven to lead, driven to excel, and driven to serve.

We will remain disciplined by staying focused and committed to our mission to create long-term value for all our stakeholders. Our decisions and actions will be guided by our core values of integrity, teamwork, innovation and responsibility.

We will continue with our BetterWorld campaign, which represents the Group’s sustainability mindset: we can do well by doing good, always making the right long-term decisions that balance the interests of people, planet and profit. For our corporate social responsibility (CSR), we will work towards achieving CSR 2.0 in our program areas of education, enterprise development, and environment. This means implementing community projects that are more sustainable for our beneficiaries and at the same time more aligned to our businesses.

The success we have today, we owe to all of you. Thank you, fellow team members, for your dedication, hard work and contributions to the Group.

I look forward to continue working with all of you in the next five years. As you may know, my retirement has been deferred to 2019 so playing golf to my heart’s content will have to wait. At this point, nothing is more exciting than continuing to lead as your Group CEO, poised as we are for an even better future.

So together, let us continue to grow our business strategically and responsibly, and work towards realizing our vision to be a truly sustainable enterprise that we can entrust to future generations.

A Happy and Prosperous New Year to all!