Belle nets P3.5B

City of Dreams Manila AP PHOTO/BULLIT MARQUEZ

Leisure estate and gaming group Belle Corp. grew its net profit last year by 13 percent to P3.5 billion, the highest in its history, on strong earnings from its gaming and real estate businesses.

Excluding capital gains on sales of non-core investments and extraordinary items, Belle’s recurring net income of P3.3 billion for 2017 was 58 percent higher than the core profit in the previous year.

Consolidated revenues of P8 billion last year were up by 27 percent.

This record performance was attributed primarily to growth in gaming revenues. Through its subsidiary Premium Leisure Corp. (PLC), Belle reported a 59-percent increase in its share of gaming earnings from integrated gaming resort City of Dreams Manila, rising to P2.6 billion from P1.6 billion a year earlier.

Belle’s real estate business also contributed to its banner year with P3.1 billion in revenues, up 10 percent from P2.8 billion in 2016. Of this, P2.3 billion came from Belle’s lease to Melco Resorts and Entertainment (Philippines) Corp. (Melco) of the land and buildings comprising City of Dreams Manila, while P823 million was from real estate sales and property management activities at its Tagaytay Highlands and Tagaytay Midlands residential and leisure complexes.

The strong 2017 results enabled Belle to declare a regular dividend of 12 centavos per share on February 23 February for a total dividend payment of around P1.3 billion, payable ‪on March 23, 2018‬ to shareholders of record as of ‪March 9, 2018‬.