By James A. Loyola D&L Industries the country’s largest specialty foods ingredients, plastics and oleochemicals firm, is aiming to seal more partnerships with large multinational firms seeking to establish a presence in Asia. In an interview after the firm’s annual stockholders’ meeting, D&L President Alvin D. Lao said solid partners like Ventura Foods will allow the company to grow its export business faster than its rapidly expanding local business. Alvin D. Lao Lao explained that, three years ago, D&L had set a goal deriving half of its revenues from its overseas business and they have so far reached 22 percent with seven years to go. However, he said reaching this goal has been a challenge since their Philippine business has also been posting strong growth as it rides on the strong domestic economy. “There are large multinational food companies who want to have a presence in, or plan to expand to, Asia but they do not want to invest in putting up manufacturing plants or maintain local offices,” said Lao. He pointed out that, “we can represent them. We can be the distributor for their products in Asia or we can manufacture their products for them.” Lao said D&L’s partnership with Ventura has allowed it to export products to China, Hong Kong, Japan and other countries in the Asia Pacific region. Its other partnerships also export to the US and Europe in addition to Asia. Meanwhile, D&L declared a regular cash dividend of P0.205 per share plus a special cash dividend of P0.055 per share to shareholders of record as of June 20. Ex-date is on June 15 and payment will be made on July 9, 2018. In total, shareholders will receive P0.26 dividends per share, or a dividend yield of 2.4 percent based on June 1’s closing price of P10.94. This year’s dividend, amounting to P1.86 billion or an increase of 11 percent from last year’s P1.68 billion, is equivalent to 64 percent of last year’s recurring income. In 2017, D&L Industries’ recurring net income reached P2.9 billion, up 11 percent year-on-year, on the back of higher sales volume and margin expansion in the high margin specialty products segment.