Income surge for Sta. Lucia Land Incorporated

In a statement yesterday, the company said bottom line in 2014 reached P548 million from P300 million, while real estate revenues went up to P1.445 billion from P801 million.
“Majority of the growth came from the sales of Colinas Verdes Residential Estates (San Jose Del Monte, Bulacan), Monte Carlo Tower – Sta Lucia Residenze (Cainta, Rizal), Greenmeadows (Pavia, Iloilo), and Ponte Verde (Davao City),” Sta. Lucia said.
Net rental income from its shopping mall, the Sta. Lucia East Grand Mall, inched up 3.4% to P255 million.
“The increase [in income] due to the opening of the mall expansion was slightly offset by increased structural upgrades and improvements expenses in the existing one,” the company explained.
As a result, earnings per share surged 128% to P.064 “due to the increased income as well as the booking of treasury shares.”
Gross profit margins on real estate sales remain at 47%, while net income margin rose to almost 24% from 22.6%.
Sta. Lucia currently has a total of 43 ongoing projects and remains focused on building large-scale master-planned subdivisions in Metro Manila’s nearby provinces and emerging cities.
Last month, it announced that it entered into 16 new joint venture agreements and acquired several properties in the outskirts of the metropolis, in line with plans to purchase up to 1,000 hectares (ha) of land this year. The new partnerships expanded its land bank by 142.33 ha in Davao, Rizal, Pasig City, Batangas and Laguna. The company also acquired a total of 34.53 ha in the provinces of Batangas and Iloilo.
Some of the projects are “extensions of existing developments,” such as Ponte Verde in Davao, Greenwoods Executive in Pasig City, Metropolis East in Rizal, Golden Meadows in Laguna and Metropolis in Iloilo.
Originally incorporated as Zipporah Mining and Industrial Corp., Sta. Lucia changed its primary purpose to that of a real estate company in 1996. Its portfolio consists of horizontal and vertical properties across the country, as well as its shopping mall in Cainta, Rizal.
Shares in the company gained two centavos or 2.53% to close at 81 centavos each on Thursday. — Daphne J. Magturo