SM Prime to open 5 new malls next year

MANILA, Philippines - SM Prime Holdings Inc. (SMPH), the umbrella property firm of the SM Group, will continue growing its empire of malls with the planned opening of four to five new branches next year.

Jeffrey C. Lim, chief finance officer of SM Prime, said four of the five malls would be situated in the country, while one would open in China.

“We’re opening four or five, including Tianjin,” Lim said in an interview on the sidelines of yesterday’s ING Finex CFO of the Year Awards.

For the local sites, Lim cited Cebu and Cabanatuan as sure locations for the upcoming malls along with the planned expansion of its mall in Bulacan.

“Given the size that we have now, the new malls would increase our gross floor area (GFA) by another eight percent,” he said.

Over the long term, SM Prime earlier said it intends grow its malls to 85 (74 in the Philippines and 11 in China) with a GFA of 6.95 million square meters (sqm) in 2018.

SM Prime recently opened SM Center Angono in Rizal, its 50th mall in the Philippines.

SM Prime built its very first mall in 1983 on North EDSA and opened it two years after, starting with a GFA of only 125,000 sqm.

Among its 50 malls in the Philippines, three are included on the world’s 10 largest malls, one of which includes SM North EDSA.

The other two are SM Megamall and SM Mall of Asia. Together, these three malls have a combined GFA of 1.4 million sqm.

“We are committed to continue our expansion towards the provincial areas which remains our strategic direction in the Philippines. In almost 30 years, SM Malls have become an important element in every community. We will also continue to expand and improve the look and feel of our existing malls to keep them current and exciting for our customers,” SM Prime president Hans T. Sy said earlier in a statement.