Conglomerate SM Investments Corp. said consolidated net income in the first nine months of the year rose seven percent year-on-year to P19.4 billion on strong earnings contribution from core businesses in the retail, banking and property sectors.
Excluding extraordinary items, recurring net income grew 12 percent, SM Investments said in a disclosure to the stock exchange Wednesday.
Consolidated revenues also grew seven percent to P206.2 billion in the nine-month period.
“Our strong results year-to-date reflect our ongoing focus on delivering footprint expansion across the country and on driving cost competitiveness in all our core businesses,” SM Investments president Harley Sy said.
The conglomerate said the underlying earnings expansion was driven by the 21-percent growth in retail profit and the 15-percent growth in property recurring net income.
Banks accounted for 40 percent of the group’s consolidated earnings in the first nine months, while property and and retail contributed 39 percent and 21 percent, respectively.
SM Retail Inc. reported a 6.5-percent increase in sales to P145.3 billion from the January-to-September period following the expansion in both urban and rural communities in several parts of Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao.
The retail group added 20 new stores—most of them standalone Savemore outlets. It also recently completed the acquisition of three stores of Cherry Foodarama.
SM Retail as of end September 2015 had a total of 294 stores, comprising 51 SM Stores, 41 SM Supermarkets, 43 SM Hypermarkets, 130 Savemore and 29 WalterMart outlets.
Banking unit BDO Unibank Inc. registered a five percent increase in nine-month net income to P17.6 billion as net interest profit rose 12 percent to P41.8 billion in the first nine months of 2015.
SM Investments’ integrated property company SM Prime Holdings Inc. posted a 70-percent jump in net income to P22.9 billion in the first nine months of 2015.
Excluding P7.4 billion in one-time trading gains in the first quarter of 2015, SM Prime’s recurring net income increased 15 percent to P15.5 billion in the nine-month period.
“We expect SM Prime’s growth to be sustained as we continue to increase our mall footprint by 13 percent this year,” SM Prime president Hans Sy said earlier.
“We are excited to launch SM Seaside Cebu later this year, a landmark project in the Visayas region. We see Metro Cebu as one of our important growth corridors following our growth track in Metro Manila,” he added.
Total assets of SM Investments as of end-September 2015 increased seven percent P735.5 billion.
SM Investments maintains a healthy balance sheet with a conservative gearing ratio of 38 percent net debt to 62 percent equity.