Empire East Land & Holdings Inc., the middle-income housing unit of property developer Megaworld Corp., reported a 34 percent growth in net income for the first nine months of the year on higher interest income.
In a financial report filed with the Philippine Stock Exchange, Empire East said its net profit amounted to P140.67 million compared with P104.86 million in the same period in 2006.
Revenues, however, declined 10.7 percent to P598.54 million from P670.32 million a year earlier.
Gross profit likewise fell to P181.5 million from P209.6 million.
Sales were derived from Laguna Bel-Air, California Garden Square, Xavier Hills and The Cambridge Village.
“The other major revenue contributor was the interest income derived from accounts under in-house financing amounting to P115.26 million and P172.3 million or equivalent to 19 percent and 26 percent of total revenues,” Empire East said.
The company said other sources of revenues were commissions of a subsidiary, rentals of central business park office-warehouse and commercial spaces of various projects and those obtained from other sources.
From an operating loss of P93.2 million last year, Empire East registered income of P23.8 million which includes equity net income of subsidiaries, dividend income and gain from recovery on market value on investment of a subsidiary.
Operating expenses increased to P416.7 million from P402 million in 2006.
As of end-September this year, Empire East had total resources of P22.6 billion and cash of P213.7 million.
Total liabilities, on the other hand, amounted to P4.6 billion.
For the nine-month period this year, Empire East sourced its major cash requirements from internally-generated funds. The funds were utilized in construction and development of ongoing projects, repayments of loans, settlement of various payables, land acquisition and other operational expenses.