ALI sees robust earnings growth in next 6 years

MANILA, Philippines - Forget about the real estate bubble, property giant Ayala Land Inc. (ALI) expects its bottom line to grow at a healthy, double digit-phase phase annually in the next six years.

ALI executives sees the company’s yearly profits increasing by about 20 percent until 2020.

“We expect a profit growth of 20 percent every year until 2020,” said ALI president and chief executive officer Bernard Vincent Dy.

“It is a goal, it is a target,” ALI chief finance officer Jaime Ysmael added.

ALI set the long-term target after its profits soared 30 percent to a record P11.74 billion in 2013 from P9.04 billion the previous year.

As of the first nine-months of the year, the firm’s net income is already 25 percent higher year-on-year at P10.8 billion on the back of robust performance across its property development, commercial leasing and services business units.

In the past four years, Ysmael said the company’s average annual profit growth has been at 30 percent.

“The growth has been consistent,” he said.

The ALI officials see the momentum being sustained in the coming years given the healthy demand in the local property scene.

Dy said ALI’s profit growth target would likewise be fortified as long as the Philippine economy continues to grow at a six to seven percent.

The property firm of the Ayala conglomerate has already pierced through the income target under its 5-10-15 program that was launched in 2009 amid the global financial crisis.

It was a five-year plan to boost ALI’s net income to P10 billion and return on equity to 15 percent.

ALI in the past years has positioned itself to take advantage of the country’s robust economic growth.

At present, ALI is focusing on its new masterplanned township in Central Luzon seen to be the new hub for business and leisure in the region.

The property giant, together with partner Leonio Land, Inc., is pouring in P75 billion over the next 20 years to develop a 1,100-hectare integrated mixed-use development in Pampanga called Alvierra.

ALI is behind various developments in the north which include world-class malls TriNoma and Fairview Terraces, MarQuee Mall in Angeles, Pampanga, and Harbor Point in the Subic Bay Freeport Zone, and residential communities such as MarQuee Residences, Vertis North, and Altaraza in Bulacan.