BELLE Corp., a company part of the SM Group that owns half of City of Dreams (COD) Manila, said its net income grew almost half during the nine months of the year ending September to P2.7 billion, from last year’s P1.9 billion.
Excluding capital gains on sales of noncore investments of P184 million this year and P373 million in 2016, Belle’s recurring net income hit P2.5 billion was higher by 64 percent from P1.5 billion last year.
“The company’s operating growth in 2017 was fueled primarily by growth in its revenues from City of Dreams Manila,” it said, referring to its integrated resort and casino in Entertainment City.
Its share in the gaming income of COD Manila, through its 78.7-percent owned subsidiary, Premium Leisure Corp., almost doubled to P2.16 billion for the current period, from P1.11 billion last year.
This was attributable to the continued growth of gaming operations at COD Manila.
Premium Leisure has an operating agreement with the Philippine affiliate of Melco Resorts and Entertainment Ltd. (Melco) that accords it a share of gaming revenues or earnings at COD Manila.
“Belle also realized increased revenues from its real-estate businesses,” the company said.
Total real estate-related revenues increased by 10 percent to P2.4 billion for the current period, from P2.1 billion last year.
Of its 2017 real estate-related revenues, P1.7 billion was derived from Belle’s lease of the land and buildings comprising COD Manila to Melco, with the balance of P683 million coming from sales of real-estate products and property management activities at its Tagaytay Highlands and Midlands residential and leisure complexes south of Metro Manila.
Belle’s principal assets include land and buildings in Entertainment City in Parañaque City, which are being leased on a long-term basis to Melco, the operator of the gambling site.
Belle also owns significant real-estate assets in and around Tagaytay City. These assets consist of premium residential properties for sale and approximately 800 hectares of land held for future development, which are near two exclusive world-class golf clubs and one country club built by the company in the 1990s.