Ayala Corp., the country’s oldest conglomerate, is no exception. Through AC Logistics, it’s now trying a different playbook under the leadership of Erry Hardianto, who’s just 10 months into the job as president and CEO.
Thanks to lessons learned from Ayala’s past efforts, and drawing on 23 years of regional leadership experience at global giant Maersk, Hardianto believes they’re finally getting close to cracking the code.
“If I can summarize 2025, it’s going to be defense mode before we are able to go offense in 2026,” the Indonesian logistics veteran said in an exclusive interview with InsiderPH.
Strategic partner enters
Part of this new strategy is AC Logistics’s decision to shift gears from selling services in isolation: an express delivery service here, warehousing and fulfillment in another, all managed as a patchwork of investments.
What Hardianto and the AC board are doing is combining these individual businesses into customized but integrated solutions designed to address the pain points of customers.
If Hardianto was looking for validation to this strategy, he’s getting it in a big way.
Last March, Ayala announced that A.P. Moller Capital, part of the group that controls Danish shipping giant Maersk, is buying 40 percent of AC Logistics.
The deal, which marks A.P. Moller’s first investment in the Philippines and will help shape the company’s growth in the years to come, is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2025.
Tough decisions
The road to this point also involved making hard choices.
Hardianto helped oversee the winding down of last-mile delivery firm Entrego in 2024 to stem financial losses.
Up next is the closure of Air21’s express division—a key subsidiary of the Air21 Group that Ayala purchased from the late businessman Alberto Lina in 2022 for about P6 billion.
“The focus of the new management of AC Logistics is to fix the foundations now and by fixing the foundation this also means that we are preparing the organization that is fit for growth,” Hardianto said.
Air21 closure
The rest of Air21, which was founded in 1979, will also be shuttered, given challenges facing this sector.
“We are in the process of closing it down…the entire Air21 as a legal entity,” he said.
This does not mean AC Logistics will no longer offer critical last-mile services, which is the final step of the delivery process, where goods are transported from a warehouse directly to customers’ homes or businesses.
“The consequence is, of course, that products where we are not able to compete as a standalone, we have to exit,” Hardianto said.
“We are exiting from our own operation but we are outsourcing it to our third-party partner, provided that it is part of the much bigger solution that we work with the customers,” he explained.
Business reset
“We had an opportunity to basically reset our strategy and our strategy now in the logistics 2.0 is revolving around the customers,” he said.
Moving forward, AC Logistics will be reorganized to focus on four major pillars: contract logistics and national distribution, cross-border logistics (exports and imports), cold chain logistics, and project logistics, which includes moving equipment for large industrial businesses.
“Those will also be areas where we are collaborating with A.P. Moller Capital,” Hardianto said.
P8-billion spending plan
Over the next three to four years, AC Logistics aims to spend P5-8 billion through organic expansion and also acquisitions, he said.
The company is not starting from scratch and will build on the strong foundation laid down by former CEO Rene Almendras.
“Currently we are not small. We have a 130,000 square meters footprint [warehouse capacity] in the country,” he said.
Part of the strategy involves opening new warehouses and distribution centers to deliver consistently high-quality services at competitive prices.
Cold storage opportunity
Cold chain logistics is one area where the company is actively seeking acquisition opportunities, Hardianto said.
The company, which partnered with Glacier Megafridge, aims to reach 17,000 pallet positions later this year. Pallet positions are slots in specialized warehouses where goods are stored.
“There is this tangle between incoming goods, the storage of the goods, and the distribution of the goods. So imagine that cold chain logistics will basically knit these three elements together,” Hardianto said.
Road to profitability
AC Logistics is seeing clearer signs of a financial turnaround, with core losses down by about 24 percent to P303 million while total operating costs fell by P500 million in the first quarter of 2025.
Losses in 2024 reached P2.2 billion, with Hardianto saying it will take more time before the company becomes profitable.
Top 5 player in a few years?
Hardianto said it’s possible for AC Logistics to become one of the five largest logistics players in the country if it executes its strategy correctly.
Being No. 1, though, isn’t the top priority.
“It’s important to build scale. But, you know, being the largest for me only means one thing: that you can provide the lowest cost to serve the customer,” he said.
“My objective is to be a significant player, but we also want to be the highest quality provider in the country,” he added.
Miguel R. Camus has been a reporter covering various domestic business topics since 2009.
