ANOTHER giant mall from the country's premier mall operator, SM Prime Holdings, is set to start construction as early as January 2010.

Highly reliable sources of Sun.Star Davao revealed that the construction materials for the proposed mall will start arriving in the city by January.

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This was also verified by officers of SM Prime Holdings who requested anonymity for being not in the position to discuss the details of the project.

The project, which will be on a 10-hectare portion of the former Lanang Golf and Country Club, has been unofficially dubbed as SM North Davao.

At present, SM Prime Holding is operating one mall in Southern Mindanao, SM City Davao, which opened in November 2001 and has a gross floor area of 75,440 square meters.

For the third quarter of 2009 alone, SM Prime posted a nine percent increase in net income, amounting to P1.7 billion. Revenues for the quarter grew 14 percent to P5 billion.

Ebitda stood at P3.5 billion, resulting in an Ebitda margin of 69 percent.

Reports obtained by Sun.Star Davao showed that SM North Davao will be twice the size of SM City Davao and will be complemented by a residential project of SM Development Corporation, the residential property developer arm of SM Investments Corporation.

As of September, SM Prime Holdings posted a consolidated net income of P5.1 billion in January to September 2009, for an eight percent growth compared to the same period last year.

Revenues, on the other hand, grew by 14 percent to P14.6 billion during the first nine months of the year. (CPM)