Belle reports 93% jump in bottom line

Sy family-led leisure estate and gaming firm Belle Corp. boosted its six-month net profit by 93 percent year-on-year to P1.77 billion mostly from leasing and gaming revenue of integrated gaming resort City of Dreams Manila.

Excluding capital gains on sales of non-core investments, Belle’s recurring net income for the first semester amounted to P1.66 billion, up 82 percent year-on-year.

Belle’s operating growth was driven primarily by the surge in revenue from City of Dreams Manila. Its share in the gaming income of City of Dreams Manila through its 78.7 percent-owned subsidiary, Premium Leisure Corp. (PLC) more than doubled to P1.46 billion for the first semester. This was attributable to the continued growth of gaming operations at the gaming resort.

PLC has an operating agreement with the Philippine affiliate of Melco Resorts and Entertainment Ltd. (Melco) that gives it a share of gaming revenues or earnings at City of Dreams Manila.

Belle also increased revenues from its real estate businesses. Total real estate-related revenues increased by 10 percent year-on-year to P1.6 billion for the first half. Of these, P1.12 billion was derived from Belle’s lease of the land and buildings comprising City of Dreams Manila to Melco, while the balance of P478 million came from sales of real estate products and property management activities at its Tagaytay Highlands and Midlands residential and leisure complexes south of Metro Manila.

The land and buildings mostly used by City of Dreams Manila located at Pagcor Entertainment City in Paranaque City are being leased on a long-term basis to Melco. Apart from its leasing income, Belle also has a share in earnings from City of Dreams’ gaming operations through PLC.

City of Dreams Manila has about two hectares of gaming space, more than 900 hotel rooms operated under three hotel brands (Crown, Hyatt and Nobu), the DreamPlay indoor family amusement park, and around two hectares of restaurant and retail space.

Beyond Pagcor City, Belle owns significant real estate assets in and around Tagaytay City, a temperate mountain resort about 90 minutes south of Manila overlooking scenic Taal Lake and Mount Makiling. These assets consist of premium residential properties for sale and around 800 hectares of land held for future development, which are near two exclusive world-class golf clubs and the country club built by the company in the 1990s.—DORIS DUMLAO-ABADILLA