Mall operator SM Prime Holdings Inc. reported a 70-percent surge in net income in the first nine months of the year, partly as a result of one-time gains as its business continues to grow by adding more shopping malls into its portfolio.
 
The company said that its income rose to P22.9 billion from last year’s P13.81 billion. The figure, however, included P7.4 billion in one time trading gain on securities that it booked in the first quarter.
 
Stripping that income, the company said its profit only grew by 15 percent to P15.5 billion from the previous year.
 
For the third quarter alone, it also had 15-percent income growth to P4.2 billion from last year’s P3.77 billion.
 
Consolidated revenues rose 9 percent to P52.2 billion for the nine-month period ending September from last year’s P47.79 billion.
 
“SM Prime’s expansion across all its various business portfolios since 2013 has driven its strong financial performance this year. We expect SM Prime’s growth to be sustained as we continue to increase our mall footprint by 13 percent this year,” SM Prime President Hans Sy said.
Rental revenues from retail and commercial spaces, which contributed more than half of the consolidated revenues, increased by 11 percent to P29.4 billion, from P26.4 billion last year.
 
The growth in rental revenues was mainly driven by rising contribution from the new malls and the expansion of shopping spaces in existing malls in 2013 and 2014. These include new malls in Taguig, Parañaque, Isabela, the new wing in Ortigas mall, and the expansion of Bacolod mall with a total gross floor area of 652,000 square meters.
 
Rental growth also came from the opening of its office building in Pasay, with a gross floor area of almost 130,000 sq m.
 
Meanwhile, same-store rental growth remained at 7 percent, the same pace since 2012.
 
On the other hand, SM Prime’s real-estate sales, which accounts for a third of the consolidated revenues, grew by 4 percent to P16.6 billion from P16 billion last year.
The improvement in real-estate sales was largely attributed to the increase in the sales take-up and higher construction accomplishment of SM Development Corp. projects launched from 2010 to 2013.
 
On the other hand, the housing group’s reservation sales was up by 19 percent year-on-year to 10,297 units during the period and a 22-percent increase in value of P28.4 billion from P23.3 billion last year.
 
In the first nine months of 2015, SM Prime has a total of 52 malls in the country.
 
In China the company has six shopping malls with gross floor area of close to 1 million sq m including the recently opened SM City Zibo. Taking into account both Philippine and China malls, SM Prime’s total retail space is at 7.6 million sq m.
By the end of 2015, SM Prime will have 55 malls in the Philippines and six malls in China with an estimated combined gross floor area of 8.3 million sq m. It will open a huge mall in Cebu, which would be its flagship mall in the Visayas.
 
“We are excited to launch SM Seaside Cebu later this year, a landmark project in the Visayas region. We see Metro Cebu as one of our important growth corridors following our growth track in Metro Manila,” Sy said.