Mushrooming malls: SMIC grew 2019 profit by 20%

The country’s largest conglo­merate, Sy family-led SM Investments Corp. (SMIC), grew its 2019 net income by 20 percent to P44.6 billion on robust earnings across its core retailing, banking and property businesses.

Consolidated revenues increased by 12 percent to P501.7 billion, SMIC disclosed to the Philippine Stock Exchange on Friday.

SM Retail, the group’s only core business not separately listed on the stock exchange, reported a 10-percent growth in net income to P12.5 billion on the back of a 9-percent growth in total revenues to P366.8 billion.

“We had a good year in 2019 with all our core busines­ses delivering strong revenue and profit growth. The retail group added over 400 stores nationwide while the property group sustained its growth momentum led by residential and commercial developments. The banking group had a particularly good year as net income improved,” SM president Frederic DyBuncio said.

“We are confident about the long term growth potential of the country and we will continue to expand. We are committed to maintain a strong balance sheet that gives us the financial flexibility to fend off short term risks and to take on opportunities that may come our way,” DyBuncio added.

SM Retail’s department store arm, SM Store, opened two new stores in Ortigas in Pasig City and Olongapo in Zambales province. By the end of the year, total gross selling areas of all 65 department stores stood at 806,230 square meters.

The food group, which includes SM Supermarket, SM Hypermarket and Savemore, Alfamart and WalterMart, ad­ded a total of 248 new stores in 2019.

SM Retail added a total of 412 new outlets in 2019 across the portfolio. SM Retail now has a total of 2,799 outlets, consisting of 65 SM Stores, 1,609 specialty retail outlets, 58 SM Supermarkets, 52 SM Hypermarkets, 201 Savemore, 60 WalterMart and 754 Alfamart stores.

It was earlier reported that SM Prime Holdings’ consolidated net income grew by 18 percent to P38.1 billion, mostly driven by higher earnings from residential property, shopping mall and other commercial property leasing businesses.

Banking arm BDO Unibank, on the other hand, chalked up a record-high P44.2 billion in net profit last year, rising by 35 percent, beating its full-year target and posting the largest bottom line among its local peers.

The total assets of SMIC grew by 8 percent to P1.1 bil­­lion.