Top Philippine Noodle Maker Flags $126 Million Writedown For Alternative Meats Unit Quorn

Monde Nissin—the largest Philippine maker of instant noodles controlled by Indonesian tycoon Hartono Kweefanus and his family—may book up to £100 million($126 million) in impairment charges last year for its loss-making alternative meats business.

While the charges are narrower than the £145 million and £290 million write-downs booked in 2023 and 2022, respectively, investors are wondering when Quorn’s business will turnaround. Shares of Monde Nissin fell 6.2% in midafternoon trading in Manila.

U.K.-based Quorn “continues to operate in a challenging environment” Monde Nissin said on Wednesday. The maker of Lucky Me! instant noodles bought Quorn in 2015 for 550 million pounds and has since spent an additional $340 million to expand the alternative meats brand into the U.S. and Asia.

In 2023, Monde Nissin’s controlling shareholder group—Kweefanus (company chairman), CEO Henry Soesanto and their sister-in-law Betty Ang—pledged part of their shares (equivalent to 12% of the company’s outstanding shares) as a guarantee against Quorn’s writedowns.

Despite the Quorn write-down, Monde Nissin said it has flexibility to pay dividends this year, adding thatit expects Quorn to post positive EBITDA for the last three months of 2024.

Quorn is in the middle of a £15 million overhaul to downsize the unit as the expected growth in alternative meat fizzled. The restructuring, announced in November, includes the appointment of a new CEO, shutdown of plants and retrenchment of workers that Monde Nissin said will help Quorn return to black.

Soesanto, Kweefanus, Ang (Monde Nissin’s president) and their family have a combined net worth of more than $2 billion largely on the value of their controlling interest in the company, according to data compiled by Forbes Asia. Ang, who is married to a brother of Kweefanus, cofounded Monde Nissin in 1979 with her late father-in-law, Hidajat Darmono. Soesanto is married to Darmono’s daughter, Monica, the company’s treasurer.