In a press briefing following it’s stockholders meeting yesterday, Meralco chairman and chief executive officer Manuel Lopez said the firm has sold to the SM Group a 21,269-square meter property in Laguna to fund its working capital requirements and pare down debts.
An official identified with the SM Group said the property was sold for a little over P6,000 per square meter or a total of P129.774 million. The property is adjacent to the 27,000 sqm. property of SM Prime Holdings Inc.
The acquisition was intended to beef up SM Prime’s landbank for future mall development.
This year, SM Prime plans to open three new malls – SM City Baguio, SM City Marilao in Bulacan and SM City Lucena in Quezon Province. These new malls will bring the number of SM malls to 17 and the total gross floor area to around 2.2 million sqm.
SM Prime said it will continue with its landbanking activities to ensure adequate sites for its mall expansion program. To date, SM Prime has a total landbank of 144 hectares in eight strategic locations all over the country including Bacolod, Marikina, Laguna, Bulacan, Pangasinan, Lucena, Cavite, Batangas and Cabanatuan.
SM Prime expects these new malls to provide additional employment and trade opportunities to people in the provinces.
SM Prime continues to undergo its nationwide expansion binge, targeting to put up an average of two supermalls every year for the next five years.
Also part of the company’s expansion include areas in Mindanao as encouraging results of their recent provincial malls have driven SM Prime to acquire land and prime properties in these areas.
SM Prime reported a 7.5-percent growth in its net income for the first quarter this year to P1.075 billion from P1 billion in the same period a year ago.
The increased income was bolstered by the 10.3-percent hike in consolidated revenues, fueled by the good performance of its mall and food court leasing, cinemas and amusement operations. Revenues reached P2.04 billion compared with P1.85 billion a year earlier.