Seeing bright prospects for property companies, stock portal 2tradeasia.com has recommended a ‘long-term buy’ for SM Prime Holdings, Inc. shares.

One factor for 2tradeasia’s optimism is the recent news on remittances. Money sent home by overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) through banks sustained the -billion level for the fourth consecutive month in August at .09 billion, bringing the January-August total to .1 billion, up 15.3% from the same period last year, the central bank said Friday.  This supports Filipinos’ spending on property and other investment vehicles.

Over eight million OFWs provide disposable income to families they have left behind in the Philippines. As such, the OFW segment is a very crucial area for SM Prime.

Also, the continued robust growth of business process outsourcing augurs well for middle-income families, as they get to receive extra disposable income. These indicators point to stronger retail spending for the rest of the year.

SM Prime, the country’s largest mall operator, will end 2006 with 27 malls and a gross floor area of 3.6 million square meters after opening five new malls this year.

SM City Lipa was opened last month while SM City Sta. Rosa, SM City Clark, the much-touted SM Mall of Asia and SM Supercenter Pasig were opened early this year.

SM City Lipa is the company’s second mall in Batangas, aimed at serving the growing residential and industrial population of that province.

Next year, the group is preparing to open malls in Bacolod, Negros Occidental, Baliwag in Bulacan, Taytay in Rizal, and Muntinlupa. It will also open the 161,562-square-meter SM City Cebu expansion as well as the additional 154,183 square meters for SM City Fairview.

SM Prime earlier said it intends to build four to five malls annually for the next three years in 14 locations including Marikina, Parañaque, Tarlac and Pangasinan.

It also has malls and other properties in China. The Sy family owns a 120,000-square-meter mall in Xiamen which opened in 2003 and a second mall which covers 165,000 square meters to 175,000 square meters in Jin Jiang province.

Rental revenues from new malls and cinema ticket sales boosted SM Prime’s net profit in the first half of the year by 9% to P2.6 billion from P2.4 billion in the same period last year. Total revenues grew by 17% to P6.09 billion from P5.2 billion.

Income from operations went up to P3.54 billion from P2.95 billion, or a 20% yearly growth.

A small increase in operating expenses to P2.55 billion from P2.24 billion accompanied the growth in the the company’s income.

SM Prime shares closed last Friday at P8.50 per share, up 1.19% from the previous day’s trading session.