SM Prime profit up 16% to P19.3 B in H1

MANILA, Philippines — Property giant SM Prime Holdings Inc. posted a 16 percent growth in net income in the first half of the year to P19.30 billion from P16.62 billion a year ago.

SM Prime president Jeffrey Lim said the company continues to grow because of the country’s strong economic fundamentals.

“The country’s stable economy has helped SM Prime maintain its growth in all core businesses for the first half of 2019. We are optimistic to sustain this growth moving forward as we launch new projects with the goal of providing more integrated property developments across the Philippines,” he said.

The company raked in P57.05 billion in the first half of the year from P49.77 billion in the same period last year, while overall operating income went up by 17 percent to P27.42 billion from P23.36 billion the previous year.

Second quarter income was likewise robust.

SM Prime earned P10.50 billion during the quarter, up 16 percent from P9.02 billion a year ago, while consolidated revenue grew by 16 percent to P30.51 billion from P26.42 billion in the same period last year.

Of the total revenue, consolidated mall revenues increased by eight percent to P31.07 billion in the first half of 2019, accounting for 55 percent of the company’s consolidated revenues.

Rental revenues, meanwhile, went up to P26.22 billion from P24.49 billion of the previous year, driven by the seven percent same-mall sales growth as well as the increasing contribution from newly opened and expanded malls in 2018.

At present, SM Prime has 72 malls in the Philippines and seven malls in China with a total gross floor area (GFA) of 9.3 million square meters (sqm) as of June 2019.

As for the residential group, this segment accounted for 36 percent of consolidated revenue with a 26 percent growth to P21.43 billion in the first half of 2019 from P17.05 billion of last year.

Lim said this was driven by steady demand for its high-rise housing projects in Metro Manila that were launched from 2016 to 2018.

SM Development Corp. (SMDC), the company’s primary residential business unit, recorded a 20 percent increase in reservation sales for the first six months of 2019 to P41.46 billion from P34.45 billion of last year.

SM Prime’s other businesses, led by Commercial Properties Group and Hotels and Convention Centers, reported a combined revenue growth of 13 percent to P4.63 billion in the first half of the year from P4.11 billion of the same period last year.

At present, SM Prime has 11 office buildings with a combined GFA of 642,000 sqm as of June 2019, while the Hotels and Convention Centers business unit currently has seven hotels with over 1,700 rooms, four convention centers and three trade halls.