Conglomerate SM Investments Corp., the holding company of tycoon Henry Sy, said Wednesday net income climbed 6 percent in 2017 to P32.9 billion from P31.2 billion in 2016, on the strong results of property, banking and retail businesses.
SMIC said in a disclosure to the stock exchange consolidated revenues grew 9 percent in 2017 to P396.1 billion from P363.4 billion in 2016.
“Our core businesses continued to deliver strong results in 2017 with recurring net income growth of 9 percent, driven by overall growth in the economy and our nationwide expansion plans. Our property and specialty retail businesses delivered particularly strong results,” SMIC president Frederic DyBuncio said.
“During the year SM made substantial investments in its banks and in new business opportunities, which we expect to contribute to higher earnings growth in future years,” he said.
Property accounted for 40 percent of total earnings, with banks comprising 38 percent and retail 22 percent.
SM Retail Inc., which consists of food and non-food stores, reported a net income of P10.4 billion and revenues of P297.4 billion in 2017, up 7 percent year-on-year.
“The underlying performance of our retail operations remained good, led by strong growth in our higher margin specialty retailing and with the addition of the successful Miniso variety store chain during the year,” DyBuncio said.
The department store business under The SM Stores opened in SM CDO Downtown Premier and SM City Puerto Princesa to end 2017 with 59 department stores with total gross selling area of 0.76 million square meters.
The food group, which includes SM Supermarket, SM Hypermarket and Savemore and WalterMart, continued to expand mostly in provincial areas in 2017 with the opening of 42 new stores.
SM Retail had a total of 2,032 outlets, comprising 59 SM Stores, 1,299 specialty retail outlets, 52 SM Supermarkets, 47 SM Hypermarkets, 181 Savemore, 46 WalterMart and 348 Alfamart stores as of end-2017.
SMIC’s property unit SM Prime Holdings Inc. earlier reported a recurring net income of P27.6 billion, up 16 percent from 016, driven by the increase in rental revenue from malls and strong sales take-up of housing units.
SM Prime said it would spend P60 billion this year primarily to expand its mall and residential business. It said this year’s capital expenditures would be funded through internally generated funds and external borrowings.
SM Prime is set to open six new malls to end the year with 73 malls in the Philippines and seven malls in China with a combined gross floor area of 9.7 million square meters.
BDO Unibank Inc. posted a net income of P28.1 billion in 2017, while China Banking Corp. booked a net income of P7.4 billion, an increase of 15 percent.
SMIC’s total assets hit P960.1 billion as of end-2017.