Century Properties posts 91% growth in 1H profit

MANILA, Philippines - Century Properties Group announced on Wednesday that its net income for the first six months of 2012 grew 91 percent to P944 million from P496 million a year ago on the back of "strong" sales from its property developments.

In a statement, the developer of Trump Tower said total revenues during the period surged 133 percent to P4.9 billion from P2.1 billion last year.

In the second quarter alone, revenues and income rose by 146 percent to P2.5 billion and 28 percent to P491 million, respectively.

From April to June, the company generated P5.4 billion in pre-sales, 19 percent of which came from the luxury segment, 40 percent from the middle income, and 41 percent from the affordable markets.

For the first semester, Century's pre-sales grew 18 percent to P10.7 billion from last year and already 54 percent of the P20-billion pre-sales target for 2012. About 66 percent or P7.1 billion of this semester's pre-sales came from offshore buyers.

At end-June, Century Properties' debt stood at P1.4 billion, representing a total debt to equity of 19 percent while it had a net debt to equity ratio of 10 percent.

"All of the debt on its balance sheet is for projects that are significantly pre-sold, thus ensuring Century is on solid financial footing," the company said.

During the briefing on Wednesday, Marco Antonio, Century co-chief operating officer, said the recession in the euro zone and the weakness of the US economy may not hit the company significantly since they learned from their experience during the 2008 subprime recession.

"When the subprime crisis from the US spread to other parts like Europe, what we did was we diversified geographically where we source our international sales. We've been actually successful and we've diversified into 50 countries and two-thirds of our sales come from these countries," Antonio said.

"So the temporary vacuum that we felt in America was more than aptly covered by various markets such as the Middle East, Canada, the rest of Asia, as well as Europe," he added.

This time, Century's sales in Europe did not slow down and instead increased since its market is not that affected by the European recession. Some of these buyers are nurses, IT workers, and accounting professionals, who are still employed.

"Yes, this may be a temporary hiccup in terms of their purchasing power but we're quite conscious to match the product with the market. Will Trump [Tower] sell in Italy? Probably not. But will our residences in Commonwealth sell to Filipinos in the Italy market? The answer is a resounding yes," Antonio said.

In the long-term, the Century executive said their diversified push in their international sales will insulate the company from the slowdowns in some parts of the world.

The real estate firm said about 30 percent of its sales come from Asia, 35 percent from US, while UK, EU and the Middle East make up 12 percent to 16 percent each of their total sales.

source: interaksyon.com