Conglomerate SM Investments Corp. increased its 2018 capital expenditures to P90 billion from an earlier target of P66.3 billion to fund the expansion of its retail, banking and property businesses.
SMIC senior vice president for finance Franklin Gomez said in a news briefing following the annual stockholders’ meeting that property unit SM Prime Holdings was preparing to spend P80 billion while the group’s retail and banking units would invest P5 billion each this year.
He said funding for this year’s capital expenditures would come mainly from internally generated funds.
SMIC president Frederic DyBuncio said the company would continue to look for investment opportunities and acquisitions that could provide synergies to the group.
The conglomerate’s portfolio investments include equities in Belle Corp., Atlas Mining, the Net Buildings, CityMalls, MyTown and 2Go Group Inc.
“As a holding company, SM Investments will also have an opportunity to build its portfolio of investments in complementing business that will help us capture the high growth of the Philippine economy,” DyBuncio said.
“We look to invest in partners with leading positions, strong management and with potential for high growth and attractive yields,” he said.
DyBuncio said by investing in new sectors, the conglomerate would follow the direction of the government in terms of priority projects.
“As we know, the plan is to increase the growth of economy nationwide, even in the Visayas and Mindanao area because so far, the growth has been limited to National Capital Region as far as concentration of businesses. That is one of the reasons we went into logistics to be part of that growth of the economy moving forward,” DyBuncio said.
The conglomerate’s retail group held talks with bakeshop chain Goldilocks Bakeshop Inc. last year for possible joint venture partnership. Both parties announced in February they mutually agreed not pursue the deal despite receiving the Philippine Competition Commission’s approval to proceed with the deal.
SM Investments posted a 6- percent increase in net income in 2017 to P32.9 billion from P31.2 billion in 2016 on strong results from property, banking and retail businesses.
Consolidated revenues grew 9 percent in 2017 to P396.1 billion from P363.4 billion in 2016.
Share price of SMIC closed lower by 1.4 percent to P882.50 Wednesday.