SM Investments Corp. (SMIC) on Wednesday said is adapting to changes brought about by the coronavirus pandemic and expects its core businesses of banking, retail and property to come out stronger after the crisis.
“The pandemic has made us more aware of the two important things for our customer—convenience and safety, and for ourselves, adaptability and transformation,” SMIC Vice Chairman Teresita T. Sy-Coson said during the firm’s online annual stockholders’ meeting.
“We have been improving our online and physical experience in operations across the group. From the banking to the retail to the mall to the property businesses.”
“Coming from this lockdown, we were able to operate a hybrid way of reaching our customers. We are excited to strengthen this new offering. And going forward, we will transform into a stronger and more adapted SM After this crisis.”
SM President Frederic C. Dybuncio said SMIC’s units have their respective e-commerce initiative strategies either as a direct participant or as a service provider.
“As a direct participant, we have our own online shopping sites. And then we also actually have our own stores in several of the other e-commerce platforms, just to be able to access a much wider customer base for SM products,” Dybuncio said.
“We also are working with several partners to develop a grocery delivery service, particularly at this time as a service provider. We use our physical presence of our malls and stores as pickup locations for click and collect for e-commerce.
“We also provide logistics support such as warehousing and last mile delivery, using the different logistics companies that we actually bought within the group,” he noted. The SM Group will also provide the digital payment network to its banks, as well as their e-wallet service to their joint ventures such as with GrabPay Philippines.”
SMIC also declared cash dividends to shareholders worth P5.1 billion equivalent to P4.25 per share. The total amount is equivalent to 50 percent of its 2019 net income attributable to the parent company.
It will be given to shareholders on record as of July 9 and payable on July 23.