COSCO Capital Inc., the holding firm of businessman Lucio Co, on Friday said it bought a property in Biñan, Laguna, for the company’s second community-mall development. The company said its unit Ellimac Prime Holdings Inc. signed a deed of absolute sale with the owners of a 3,192 square meters of land on A. Mabini Street in Poblacion, Biñan. It did not disclose the identity of the previous owner of the property and how much it bought the land.
The Laguna property is the company’s second announcement of its development of community mall this week after Cosco announced that it signed a lease agreement with Rotonda Development Corp. for the 7,168 sq m of land in Marikina. It will use the land to build a commercial center.
For the year, the company is spending some P10 billion in capital expenditures, but about 12 percent will be allocated for the community malls, and the rest to its supermarket chains, the setting up of convenience store chain under the Lawson brand and for various corporate acquisitions. Cosco said it is developing properties in Pangasinan, Laguna and Nueva Ecija, where it will build its community malls. Construction of the three malls will cost P1.2 billion.
Earlier this year, the company acquired NE Pacific Shopping Centers Corp., which owns NE Pacific Mall in Cabanatuan City.
The company earlier reported that its net income grew fourfold during the first half of the year to P2.3 billion from last year’s P488 million, while its revenues rose by more than six times.
Cosco admitted that this period is an “out-of-range fluctuation” since, last year, the company only reported as a mining firm when for the period it included 14 other companies of Co. Revenues also soared to P40.6 billion from last year’s P6.3 billion.
For the period, its retail segment had a P1.65 billion in income, at 4.3- percent net margin. The said income was lower by 6.6 percent from last year’s P1.77 billion.