8990 Holdings posts 64% profit growth to P2.1B

MANILA, Philippines - Mass housing developer 8990 Holdings Inc., formerly IP Converge Data Center Inc., said its profits hit P2.1 billion in January to September, up 64 percent from P1.28 billion last year on strong sales of low-cost homes.

For the third quarter alone, the property developer’s earnings almost doubled to P589 million from P300.4 million a year ago while sales rose 27.6 percent to P1.23 billion from P964.35 million.

“Internally, we attribute our growth to the growing recognition of our brand Deca Homes, our proprietary pre-fab technology that allows us to turnover housing units in less than a month, as well as our unique in-house financing program CTS Gold that allows our buyers to move in easily as soon as their units are completely built,” said 8990 Holdings president and CEO Jesus Atencio.

The property firm earlier targeted a net income of P2 billion this year compared with P1.71 billion in 2012 due to continuous brisk demand from the affordable mass housing sector, particularly in the Visayas and Mindanao.

“On the macro-side, positive gross domestic product growth, stable overseas Filipino remittances and a widening gap of demand and supply for mass housing resulting in a housing backlog of four million units provides a platform for long term growth in the mass housing sector,” Atencio said.

Sales in the low-cost mass housing segment rose 37 percent to P3.88 billion in the nine-month period from P2.82 billion last year.

8990 Holdings also recorded P398.26 million in revenues from its medium-rise building, P65.38 million from its hotel operations and P32.76 million from its time share business.

“Because of economies of scale and our continuous research and development on our house construction technology, we managed to bring down our cost of sales and services,” Atencio said.

Cost of sales and services dropped by a tenth while operating expenses fell 3.8 percent to P459.42 million and P166.7 million, respectively.