Megaworld Corp. Income down 33% in First Half

Megaworld Corp. (MEG) reported a net income for the first half of the year of ₱5.88 billion, a 33% drop from ₱8.86 billion year-on-year. Revenue dropped by 25% to ₱23.7 billion, from ₱31.72 billion for the same period.

Andrew L. Tan, executive vice president, said “Just as the pandemic began in the last month of the first quarter, we already anticipated a decline in our earnings in the second quarter, but what actually surprised us was the fact that the drop wasn’t as bad as we have expected it to be, and it remains manageable,”

Tan added “Our strategic decision of further strengthening our office leasing business way before the pandemic started is now evidently making us more resilient.”

MEG reported second quarter profits of ₱2.08 billion, a 56% drop from ₱4.75 billion and revenue of ₱8.71 billion, a 51% drop from ₱16.81 billion year-on-year.

MEG is scheduled to complete construction of five new office developments in its various townships; Iloilo Business Park in Iloilo City, Arcovia City in Pasig, Westside City in Parañaque, McKinley West and Uptown Bonifacio in Taguig. These projects are 90% pre-leased on average to date.

Tan said “Business process outsourcing [BPO] companies and traditional offices such as corporate headquarters of multinational companies still occupy around 90 percent of our spaces, which still continued their operations even at the height of the lockdown,”

“We are closing some deals from many Metro Manila-based BPO companies that require an immediate expansion in our provincial townships due to eased quarantine rules there. Our current portfolio of active BPO tenant partners is still huge, and these are our first-line takers in our provincial developments.”

MEG is scheduled to end the year with 70 completed office developments covering 1.4 million square meters of leasable office inventory, excluding those that have already been sold.