Property developers Ayala Land Inc. and Robinsons Land Corp. registered lower profits in the first six months as the pandemic hurt their residential, mall and hotel operations.
Both companies said, however, the real estate industry began to show signs of recovery with the reopening of the economy.
Ayala Land said in a disclosure to the stock exchange first-half net income fell 70 percent to P4.5 billion, as consolidated revenues declined 50 percent to P41.2 billion.
Revenues from property development amounted to P24.9 billion, down by 58 percent from a year ago on lower project bookings and suspended construction activity.
Residential revenues also decreased by 54 percent to P20.5 billion while office for sale revenues dropped 86 percent to P1.4 billion.
“COVID-19 severely impacted our performance in the first half of the year. Although we are seeing some positive signs of recovery in certain product lines, we expect the remainder of the year to be extremely challenging,” Ayala Land president and chief executive Bernard Vincent Dy said.
“Our property sales started to gain traction as the economy reopened but the performance of our malls and hotels continue to be seriously affected under the current environment. We are constantly making adjustments in our operations to position the company for renewed growth when the economy recovers,” Dy said.
Meanwhile, Robinsons Land reported an 8-percent decline in first-half net income to P3.7 billion even as consolidated revenues climbed 3 percent to P15.4 billion.
The group’s investment portfolio which accounts for 49 percent of consolidated revenues went down by 25 percent to P7.5 billion in the first half from P10 billion in the same period last year.
The development portfolio surged by 59 percent to P7.9 billion in the first half with the new residential accounting treatment. Without the adjustment, residential revenue was down by 51 percent in the period.
“Even with the full impact of the quarantine in the second quarter, all our business units managed to be EBITDA-positive. Moving forward, the improving trend gives us optimism that the economy is on its way to recovery. We continue to seek opportunities and innovative new ways of doing business to deliver long-term sustainable value to all our stakeholders,” said Robinsons Land president and chief executive Frederick Go.