Wilcon Depot 9-month net income jumps 58%

Home improvement tycoon William Belo’s Wilcon Depot Inc. booked a P2.7-billion profit in the first nine months of the year on strong demand for construction projects after pandemic restrictions were eased.

Net income from January to September jumped over 58 percent versus the same period last year on high-margin product sales and price increases due to inflation.

“This is the re-opening scenario that we hoped to happen last year but was stymied by the Delta variant surge,” Wilcon CEO and president Lorraine Belo-Cincochan said in a stock exchange filing on Tuesday.

“A lot more private construction has indeed resumed this year, particularly those that were delayed due to mobility restrictions and lack of manpower, inflation notwithstanding,” she added.

Wilcon said net sales reached P24.72 billion, up 23.3 percent for the nine-month period, partly on the contribution of newly-opened stores.

“Metro Manila stores led the turnaround since these were the ones most impacted by COVID surges and the corresponding restrictions last year. Six new depots and one Home Essentials were opened so far this year,” the company said.

Wilcon said gross profit margin expanded to 38.9 percent from 37.1 percent as sales from higher-margin exclusive and in-house products increased. It thus booked a gross profit of P9.62 billion, up 29.4 percent.

Operating expenses, including lease-related interest expense, also went up by 15.7 percent to nearly P6 billion.

For the third quarter alone, net income climbed 77.5 percent to P1.1 billion while net sales hit P8.78 billion, up 32.6 percent.

Wilcon opened four of the six new stores from July to September this year.

Quarterly gross profit was up 37.4 percent to P3.5 billion. This was driven mainly by the rise in the gross profit margin rate to 39.4 percent from 38.0 percent in 2021.

Operating expenses, including lease-related interest costs, as a result of higher volume of business also increased by 19.7 percent or P351 million to close at P2.134 billion for the quarter.

“Wilcon once again delivers a banner quarter going from strength to strength coming off a stellar second quarter. The complete turnaround of our stores from the slight slump in the third quarter of last year, propelled comparable sales growth to 23.5 percent year-on-year,” said Belo-Cincochan.

“With the resilience shown by our mature stores, we will focus on further enhancing their performance for the rest of the year and especially for the succeeding years. We also still have one new store to be opened this fourth quarter and we expect to have opened eight stores by the end of this year,” she added.