By James A. Loyola
Township developer Megaworld Corporation registered 22 percent hike in net income to ₱19.3 billion last year from the ₱15.8 billion earned in 2018.
Excluding non-recurring gains of ₱691 million, net income grew 18 percent to a new record high of ₱18.6-billion Attributable net income stood at ₱17.9 billion, also up 18 percent from ₱15.2 billion the year before.
Consolidated revenues grew at a robust pace of 17 percent to ₱67.3 billion in 2019 from ₱57.4 billion in 2018. The healthy growth was underpinned by the strong performances of all of its key businesses.
Megaworld’s rental business posted another record growth last year, rising 18 percent to ₱16.8 biliion from ₱14.3 billion in 2018. Its office leasing arm, Megaworld Premier Offices, primarily contributed to the record growth in rentals, jumping 20.5 percent to ₱10.5 billion from ₱8.7 billion the previous year.
The company was able to complete around 192,300 square meters of new leasable office spaces last year. This has brought Megaworld Premier Offices’ current inventory of leasable office spaces to 1.3 million square meters.
“Undoubtedly, our strongest rental business still comes from our leases of prime office spaces across the Philippines,” said Megaworld Chief Strategy Officer Kevin L. Tan.
He noted that, “The good news is that we still continue to see growth in the business process outsourcing (BPO) and information technology (IT) sectors, which comprise majority of our office rentals to date.”
“This remains to be a very strong sector and very sustainable, and even with the emergence of Artificial Intelligence (AI), we will also see the emergence of new companies that would require spaces,” he added.
Megaworld Lifestyle Malls, on the other hand, grew its income by 14 percent to P6.3 billion from P5.5 billion in 2018. Around 20,600 square meters of leasable spaces were added to the company’s retail space portfolio, bringing the total leasable space to 453,000 square meters.
The company’s real estate sales in 2019 grew 12 percent, ending the year at P42.6 billion from P38.0 billion during the previous year. Last year, Megaworld also registered a record level sales reservation amounting to P149-billion.
Meanwhile, the company’s hotel business under the Megaworld Hotels brand also registered phenomenal growth as hotel revenues soared 67 percent to P2.5 billion compared to previous year’s P1.5 billion. This after the company opened three new hotel properties.