Posted on June 13, 2012 09:55:22 PM [
BusinessWorld Online ]
EMPIRE EAST Land Holdings, Inc. aims
to grow profits by double digits this year on the back of sales from its
ongoing residential projects and increased consumer spending prior to the 2013
elections, a company official said yesterday.
“We feel we will probably have around
15-20% growth in terms of net income. We’re very positive because, looking at
our first-quarter sales, we increased by 121% from last year versus this year,”
Anthony Charlemagne C. Yu, Empire East president, told reporters following the
company’s annual stockholders meeting yesterday.
Last year, the company posted flat
profits. Its net income amounted to only P179.38 million from P177.84 million
in 2010, earlier reports showed.
A bulk of the firm’s net income growth
this year will be driven by the sales of completed and ongoing projects, Mr. Yu
said. “There is very good demand, and we think this can be sustained because a
pre-election year is always good for us. We are confident about our prospects
this year.”
This year, Empire East aims to sell up
to 7,000 residential units versus only around 3,000 last year, and book roughly
P15 billion in reservation sales from approximately P7 billion in 2011.
“All the projects have been selling
really fast, and we do not see any reason why there should be any slowdown. We
cannot think of any extraneous variable in the horizon that can affect our
sales,” Mr. Yu said.
For 2012, Empire East expects to
complete two projects, namely tower one of Pioneer Woodlands, a six-tower,
transit-oriented project on the corner of Pioneer Street and EDSA in Mandaluyong
City. The other project is tower one of Little Baguio Terraces, a four-tower
development on Aurora Boulevard in San Juan City.
In addition, the company said it is in
talks with a number of firms for possible joint-ventures to further broaden its
project portfolio, but nothing has been firmed up yet.
Empire East shares lost 0.01% to close
at 71 centavos yesterday. -- Franz Jonathan G. de la Fuente
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