Sunday, May 4, 2008 [ philstar.com ]
Empire East Land & Holdings Inc., the low-to-middle cost housing unit of Megaworld Corp., reported a net income of P307.98 million last year, up 25 percent from P246.81 million in 2006 on higher sales of various condominium units and house-and-lot packages.
In a financial report filed with the Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE), Empire East said real estate sales grew 50 percent to P1.8 billion, coming from the sales of California Garden Square, Xavier Hills, Greenhills Garden Square and The Cambridge Village, Laguna Bel Air as well as the divestment of undeveloped land.
Revenues derived from real estate sales, rental income, interest income, and other related sources went up 45 percent to P3.14 billion while gross profit increased by 47.3 percent to P221.9 million.
Empire East said its major revenue contributor was interest income which rose 19.2 percent to P712.6 million from P597.8 million. Interest income, derived mostly from accounts under in-house financing, accounted for 23 percent of total revenues.
Additional sources of revenue were commissions of a subsidiary, rentals from office - warehouse units in the Central Business Park complex and commercial units in various projects, and those obtained from other sources.
Operating expenses amounted to P1.22 billion, 48 percent higher than the previous year’s P826.4 million due to recognition of change in fair value of financial assets, additional manpower employed, and other expenses related to marketing and administrative operations.
As of end-December 2007, the company’s total resources stood at P22.65 billion or a slight decrease from P23.35 billion in 2006. Cash and cash equivalents improved from P928 million to P943 million due to increase in collections from sales and other sources.
The Group remained liquid with total assets of P15 billion in 2007, 10.3 percent higher than the year earlier figure of P13.6 billion. Total liabilities declined to P3.76 billion from P4.84 billion.
Empire East spent P1.2 billion for its construction and development activities last year, sourced mostly from internally generated funds and partly from the discounting of its installment contract receivables.
The company has been acquiring interests in properties either through outright acquisitions or joint venture with landowners. It intends to have sufficient properties for development in the next five to seven years.
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