SM nets P22B

The country’s largest conglomerate SM Investments Corp. booked an 11-percent growth in nine-month net profit to P22 billion as a fast-growing economy boosted earnings across its retail, banking and property businesses.

Excluding one-off items, core profit rose by 9 percent year-on-year during the first nine months, matching the 9 percent rise in consolidated revenues to P252.4 billion for the period.

“Our core businesses are delivering solid growth in line with the investments we have made and against a background of stable economic fundamentals. We are also encouraged by the performance of the recently merged specialty retail stores which delivered double digit topline growth,” SM president Harley Sy said in a press statement on Wednesday.

“The intention of the government program to invest heavily in nationwide infrastructure projects should help economic development and drive provincial growth outside Metro Manila which is where we are also directing our investments,” Sy said.

The growth was led by the 13-percent expansion in the property business under SM Prime Holdings, the 11 percent growth in profits contributed by banking units BDO Unibank and China Bank and the 7 percent growth posted by the retail business.

For the first nine months, banks and property each accounted for 39 percent of consolidated earnings while retailing contributed 22 percent.

Retail operations under SM Retail Inc. grew nine-month net profit by 7 percent year-on-year to P7 billion on the back of a 9-percent expansion in total sales to P186 billion.

Early in the year, SM announced the merger of SM Retail with several leading specialty retail stores with over 1,400 outlets. The merger received final approval from the Securities and Exchange Commission last July. During the nine-month period, the specialty stores added 95 stores nationwide.

It was earlier reported that SM’s banking units performed during the nine-month period year-on-year as follows:

– BDO Unibank grew net income by 10 percent to of P19.3 billion on robust lending, deposit-taking and fee-based businesses; and,
– China Bank grew net profit by 31 percent to P4.8 billion on strong growth in its core and fee-based businesses.

Property unit SM Prime, now a leading property developer in Southeast Asia, reported a 13 percent growth in recurring net income to P17.5 billion for the nine-month period.

As of end-September, total assets of SM grew by 9 percent to P813.5 billion.