Published : Monday, January 23, 2012 00:00 [ manilatimes.net ]
Written by : KRISTA ANGELA M. MONTEALEGRE
AYALA Land Inc. (ALI) may hike its unit launch target this year after announcing favorable earnings results in 2011.
Antonino Aquino, ALI president, told reporters in a recent interview that unit launches for 2012 may surpass last year’s figures, depending on the market take-up of its project rollouts.
“We think it’s [unit launch target] going to be better than last year,” he added.
This after the company hit its target launches of 20,000 units last year, doubling 2010 figures, said Jaime Ysmael, ALI chief finance officer, in a text message.
Last week, Alveo Land Corp., the company’s unit for the upper-middle market, became the first ALI brand to announce that it would step up its project launches to an average of one residential project per month this year across major growth centers nationwide.
Alveo Land, which accounts for a third of ALI’s residential business, launched nine developments for the entire 2011, equivalent to over 2,700 units. This year’s unit launches may be about the same level or a little higher than last year’s figures, said Jenylle Tupaz, project development head of Alveo Land.
Aquino said that the real estate giant had a “very good” 2011 with its performance in the fourth quarter, tracking its growth trajectory in the first nine months of the year.
ALI posted a 33-percent increase in net earnings to P5.23 billion in the January to September period, representing 96 percent of what the company reported for the entire of 2010.
In November, Ysmael said that take-up of its projects across all residential brands remain robust, citing the growing domestic economy, continued flow of remittances, robust business process outsourcing industry and the high level of liquidity in the system.
Sales take-up value reached P38.96 billion in the first nine months, equivalent to an average monthly sales take-up of P4.33 billion, or 57-percent higher than the average achieved for the whole of 2010.
ALI shares added 48 centavos or 2.74 percent to P17.98 on Friday.
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