SM Prime earmarks ₱110B for mall empire expansion

Sy family-led SM Prime Holdings Inc. plans to spend up to P110 billion next year as it plans to open more retail hubs to near its target of having 100 shopping malls within the next three years.

SM Prime president Jeffrey Lim last week said they had planned to put up five local malls next year in La Union province, Zamboanga City, Laoag City in Ilocos Norte and another in Santa Rosa City in Laguna province.

The company has yet to finalize the location of the fifth mall, according to Lim.

This will increase SM Prime’s mall network to 92, with the company planning to reach 100 domestic malls by 2027.

The real estate giant initially planned to open the Laoag mall this year but it had been pushed back, Lim said, adding that SM City JMall in Mandaue, Cebu province, would be their last launch for 2024.

SM JMall was opened on Oct. 25, making it SM Prime’s 87th mall to date and the fourth in the province. It also opened SM City Caloocan, its third SM Mall in Metro Manila’s third most populous city, in May.

Not just about shopping, eating

Apart from new malls, Lim said they would also focus on redeveloping some of their older malls to meet changing consumer preferences.

At SM Mall of Asia (MOA), for example, Lim pointed out that they had already built a “game park” that has specific areas for bowling, basketball, billiards and table tennis.

“Every five years, we do a branch refresh, and every eight years we look into redeveloping,” Lim said. “It’s not just about shopping and eating anymore; it’s the experience when they go inside the mall.”

The company also plans to redevelop the old SM mall in Cebu City and SM Rosales in Pangasinan province.

According to Lim, they spend around P800 million to P1.5 billion to redevelop each of their malls, depending on the size.

In the first half of the year, SM Prime’s earnings reached a record P22.1 billion, up by 13 percent on growth in its residential and mall businesses, while revenues rose by nearly a tenth to P64.7 billion.

Revenues from the mall business went up by 8 percent to P37.5 billion. The residential segment under SM Development Corp. also posted an 8-percent uptick in revenues to P18.9 billion.

In August, parent firm SM Investments Corp. said it had planned to acquire from a subsidiary a vast tract of land spanning 184 hectares, or about thrice the size of the MOA complex.

The land will be acquired via a property-for-share swap with Intercontinental Development Corp., a subsidiary engaged in subdivision property development.

Lim clarified that they have yet to determine the use of the property. INQ