SM nets P15B

CONGLOMERATE SM Investments Corp. grew its net profit in the first six months by 11 percent year-on-year to P15 billion on double-digit earnings across its retailing, property and banking businesses, reflecting strong consumer spending during the run-up to the presidential elections.

Excluding non-recurring items, the conglomerate led by the family of tycoon Henry Sy increased six-month net profits by 8 percent from the same period last year, driven by an 8.5 percent growth in consolidated revenues to P139.2 billion.

“Our strong first half performance reflects continued economic growth, boosted in part by election spending. We continue to focus on cost efficiencies and operating margin improvements. With the merger of our retail businesses we now cater to a much wider range of consumer needs and we look forward to benefiting from increasing consumer spending,” SM president Harley Sy said in a press statement on Thursday.

During the period, the property business contributed the most to consolidated net income at 41 percent. This was followed by the share of banks at 38 percent and retailing at 21 percent.

SM Retail – the only retail business that it not separately listed – reported a 9-percent growth in six-month sales to P105.1 billion, while net income rose by 14 percent to P3.5 billion. Net margin expanded to 3.4 percent from 3.2 percent a year ago.

As of end-June, SM Retail had a total of 328 stores, comprising 55 department stores under “The SM Stores” brand, 47 supermarkets, 45 hypermarkets, 147 Savemore stores and 34 WalterMart stores.

The Food Retail Group pursued its aggressive expansion in both urban and rural communities
nationwide, adding 12 mid-sized format Savemore stores, two SM Supermarkets, one SM
Hypermarket and two WalterMart stores. Meanwhile, fledgling convenience store chain Alfamart expanded its footprint to 146 stores as of end-June from 99 at the start of the year.

Two department stores were opened this year – one in SM San Jose Del Monte in Bulacan in April and in SM Trece Martires in Cavite in May. As of the first half, the total gross selling area of all 55
department stores stood at 729,722 square meters.

Early this year, SM announced the merger of SM Retail with Sy family-owned specialty store assets with over 1,400 outlets. The merger is seen to create value and boost earnings given the strong competitive position of the specialty stores and their synergies with SM malls.

It was earlier reported that flagship property arm SM Prime Holdings – now one of the largest property groups in Southeast Asia, grew its recurring net profit in the first six-months by 12 percent year-on-year.

BDO Unibank Inc. grew six-month net profit by 13 percent to P13.2 billion on broad-based improvement across the bank’s businesses and a one-time gain from the consolidation of BDO Life.

China Banking Corp. grew its net income by 30 percent year-on-year to P3.3 billion for the first
half, driven by strong growth in core and fee-based businesses.

As of end-June 2016, SMIC’s total assets grew by 7 percent year-on-year to P770.2 billion.