SMIC Q1 earnings up 8.1%

SY-LED conglomerate SM Investments Corp. booked P6.7 billion in net profit for the first quarter, 8.1 percent higher year-on-year, driven by growth in earnings across banking, property and retail businesses.

Excluding extraordinary items, recurring net income rose by 11 percent in the first quarter, year-on-year, on the back of a 7.7-percent increase in revenues to P65.1 billion for the period, SMIC reported to the Philippine Stock Exchange on Wednesday.

Banks accounted for 41 percent of net income while property had a share of 40 percent and retail contributed 19 percent.

“We are focused on expanding all our core businesses given the favorable economic outlook. Our expansion plans are geared toward meeting the needs of underserved customers across the country and to positioning ourselves to compete effectively in each of our growing markets,” SM president Harley Sy said in a press statement.

SM Retail Inc., the only business segment in the group which is not separately listed on the local bourse, booked a 6.5-percent year-on-year increase in net profit to P1.3 billion. This was fueled by a similar 6.5-percent growth in total sales to P44.9 billion.

The group said SM’s food retail business continued to expand in both urban and rural communities, adding 10 new stores in various parts of Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao.

At end-March, SM had a total of 279 stores broken down as follows: 50 The SM Stores (the new SM department store brand), 40 SM supermarkets, 43 SM hypermarkets, 120 Savemore stores and 26 WalterMart stores.

It was earlier reported that flagship banking unit BDO Unibank racked up P6.1 billion in net profit in the first quarter, up 12 percent year-on-year. This was mostly driven by the 9.3-percent growth in net interest income during the January to March period to P13.3 billion.

Apart from BDO, the country’s largest bank, SMIC also has an interest in China Banking Corp. (China Bank), the fifth largest private bank. Combined, these two banks have a network of over 1,000 branches nationwide.

In the property segment, which was earlier consolidated to become the largest property firm in the country and one of the largest in Southeast Asia, SM Prime Holdings earlier reported a 176-percent growth in net profit to P12.6 billion. Excluding one-time gains from the sale of securities, core income grew by 14 percent in the first quarter year-on-year to P5.2 billion.

SM Prime’s revenues went up by 9 percent in the first three months year-on-year to P16.7 billion. The property giant has interests in mall, residential, commercial and tourism development.

As of end-March, SMIC’s total assets grew by 14 percent to P718.5 billion.