THE SM mall and banking group will open a new mall in Tarlac City today. The four-level SM City Tarlac on MacArthur Highway has floor space of 103,000 square meters and is the group’s 37th “supermall.”

PROFITS OF SM Investments Corp., the listed holding firm of mall and banking tycoon Henry Sy, Sr., grew faster in the first quarter due to higher contributions from all core businesses.

The “strong” first-quarter performance of the retail, mall, banking and property businesse should set the trend for the rest of the year, an executive said yesterday.

In a disclosure, SM Investments said it registered a 14% growth in net income to P4.8 billion from January to March 2010, from P4.2 billion in 2009.

This was slightly better than the 13% profit rise in the first quarter of last year.

“We are off to a good start this year, given the very strong performance of all our core businesses. This reinforces our confidence in the country’s continued economic recovery, one that can possibly sustain our growth momentum throughout the year,” SM Investments President Harley T. Sy said in a statement.

Revenues rose by 15% to P40.3 billion from P35.2 billion year on year.

SM Investments has five core businesses — retail (SM Retail, Inc.), malls (SM Prime Holdings, Inc.), banking (Banco de Oro Unibank, Inc. and China Banking Corp.), property (SM Development Corp. and SM Land, Inc.) and hotel and entertainment.

“The first quarter is an indication already of where we are going … at least [we should] maintain [the 14% full-year growth posted last year],” Jose T. Sio, chief finance officer of SM Investments, told reporters.

The banking business, which accounted for a third of the holding firm’s earnings, doubled net income to P2.1 billion in the first quarter from P1 billion last year. Net interest income rose by 19% to P8.3 billion while customer loan portfolio increased by 18% to P469.1 billion.

Last week, Banco de Oro completed a $250-million capital-raising program with the International Finance Corp.

The retail group, which accounted for 29.2% of profits, posted a 16.5% growth in net income to P1.1 billion given gains in food and nonfood businesses.

Last year, the retail group opened 24 stores, ending 2009 with 119 stores — 36 department stores, 26 supermarkets, 26 SaveMore supermarket branches, 19 hypermarkets, and 12 Makro wholesale outlets. This year, the group plans to open 15 to 18 stores, costing P6 billion.

Profits of shopping mall operations, which accounted for a quarter of the SM group’s earnings, went up by a tenth increase to P1.9 billion.

A new SM mall in Tarlac City will open today. This year, SM malls will also rise in Calamba and San Pablo cities in Laguna, Novaliches in Quezon City, Masinag in Antipolo, and Suzhou in China.

The SM group’s property segment accounted for 13% of earnings, reporting a 40% rise in profits to nearly P1 billion on the back of a 32% increase in revenues to P3 billion.

As of the first quarter, SM Development Corp. had a total of 12 residential projects. The company aims to launch four more projects this year in Manila, Ortigas Center in Pasig, and Quezon City.

Shares in SM Investments, which was incorporated in 1960, shed P5.00 yesterday to close at P395.00 apiece. — Neil Jerome C. Morales