Jeffrey Lim, executive vice president of SM Prime Holdings, said the growth in their income is still motivated by their retail businesses.
Consolidated revenues, rose by 96 percent to P82.6 billion during the same period and retail revenues, which represent 82 percent of consolidated revenues, stood at P65.2 billion, or an increase of 130 percent arising mainly from the acquisition of SM Supermarkets and Hypermarkets last year as well as the expanded operations of all the stores, and a generally buoyant consumer market.
Rental income of inter-company transactions for the malls, which accounts for 9.7 percent of revenues were up by 6.7 to P8 billion, while revenues from cinema operations and amusement rose 19.2 percent to P1.9 billion.
Lim said because of this growth, “the main focus of our expansion would still be in the Philippines.”
SM president Harley Sy said: “We are encouraged by SM’s performance during the first nine months of 2007. While the strong Peso and higher oil prices could eventually affect the spending pattern of many Filipinos, we expect sales to remain strong as we move towards the holiday season allowing us to achieve our full-year targets.”
He added that as the company look beyond 2007, “we are confident that the Philippine economy has sufficient momentum to cope with the external challenges facing it. As such, we will pursue our expansion plans across all our core businesses.”
At present, SM has a total of 30 shopping malls nationwide and will soon to open another two malls before the end of this year in Muntinlupa City and in Taytay in Rizal province.
To date, SM prime malls are projected to reach 3.9 million square meters.
Other factors that contributed to the growth of SM Prime Holdings are the BDO Unibank, Inc., which represents the merged BDO and Equitable PCIBank which posted a consolidated net income of P4.9 billion for a 4.3 percent growth for the first nine months of 2007. Net interest income increased by 6.8 percent to P16.4 billion for the same period.
Likewise, China Bank reported a net income of P2.5 billion from January to September of 2007, approximately the same amount compared to last year. Net interest income rose 8.5 percent to P4.8 billion.
For its real estate business, revenues of SM's real estate business in the first three quarters of 2007 amounted to P2.2 billion, up 100 percent while net income stood at P700 million.
The bulk of the income came from residential condominium sales of SM Development Corporation as well as from the development of SM Mall of Asia Complex with one of its major buildings, the SMX Convention Center, completed and opened for business in November. (MSN/Sunnex)
