San Miguel Corporation (SMC) Tuesday reported a record net profit of P52.92 billion in the second quarter, six times from the year-earlier period, primarily on gains from asset sales as the country’s largest food and beverage conglomerate by sales diversified into heavy industries.

In a filing with the Philippine Stock Exchange, SMC said net profit in the April-June quarter jumped to P52.92 billion from P8.69 billion as sales increased to P42.93 billion from P40.61 billion.

For the first half, SMC reported a 182 percent jump in consolidated net income for the first half of the year to P55.6 billion from P19.7 billion in the same period last year due to huge non-recurring gains.

In a disclosure to the Philippine Stock Exchange Tuesday, SMC said that, excluding the one-off items, recurring net income is P5.3 billion for the current period which is 3 percent lower than the same period last year, due to higher interest expenses.

One-off items include gain from the sale of SMC’s 43.25 percent stake in domestic beer of P50.7 billion which was used to prepay the SMC’s debt of $923 million or P44 billion, and the gain from discontinued operations of J. Boag in 2008 of P5.7 billion.

The main reason for the drop in recurring profits despite higher revenues is the gain in net financing charges for the period amounting to P232 million, versus last year’s net financing income of P3.3 billion which included foreign exchange translation gains.

SMC posted an operating income of P8.7 billion for the first half of 2009, 6 percent higher versus same period last year.

The majority of SMC’s businesses showed sustained revenue growth despite a general slowdown in the economy, bringing consolidated net sales to P84.9 billion this period, a 7 percent improvement over last year.

Hard liquor continued to post a strong double-digit volume growth of 15 percent resulting to an operating income of P617 million from P426 million of last year.

Strong distribution efforts catapulted Ginebra San Miguel, Inc. to No. 1 in the brandy category under its “Gran Matador” brand. GSMI’s market share in the total liquor market rose five percentage points to 56 percent from 51 percent as of end-2008.

Domestic beer revenues likewise grew by 4 percent, albeit at a slower pace than last year, while operating income increased by 6 percent as a result of focused efforts to contain costs.