Banking, property units push FDC income higher

FILINVEST Development Corp. (FDC) continued to grow earnings by double digits until end-September, with its banking and real estate businesses delivering bulk of the revenues.

In its quarterly report released on Monday, the holding firm of the Gotianun family booked a 21% increase in consolidated net income to P5.91 billion from the P4.87 billion posted for the same nine months in 2015.

Consolidated revenues and other income totalled P41.97 billion or 15% more than last year’s P36.51 billion.

Bulk of the revenues continued to come from the banking (41.9%) and real estate (38.2%) groups. The remainder was delivered by the power generation (11.2%), sugar (6.1%) and hotel (2.6%) operations.

East West Banking Corp. particularly drove the financial performance of FDC with a 78% jump in net profit to P2.3 billion on the back of a 50% expansion in its consumer loan portfolio and a 30% rise in deposits.

“As the results bear out, we are harvesting the initial fruits of our investment in the branch-store expansion,” FDC Chairman Jonathan T. Gotianun said in a statement, as East-West tripled its network to 443 branches over the past five years.

Revenues from the real estate business, meanwhile, rose 6% to P15.06 billion from P16.03 billion during the nine months.

Filinvest Land, Inc. managed to book a 7% increase in net income to P3.46 billion. This follows a 6% uptick in consolidated revenues to P13.60 billion, as rental revenues grew 14% to P2.28 billion while real estate sales turned out flattish at P10.24 billion.

Filinvest Alabang, Inc., meanwhile, netted P728.2 million or 20% above the P870.5 million reported a year earlier on “significant” growth in core revenues. —