LISTED builder Megawide Construction Corp. is upbeat about its earnings prospects this year following an improved first-quarter performance and the steady completion rate of ongoing and new projects.
These projects include Suncity Group’s Westside City Resorts World project, Malolos-Clark Railway, and Metro Manila Subway System.
At the company’s annual stockholders’ meeting on Wednesday, Megawide Chairman Edgar Saavedra said they were aiming to keep the firm’s annual order book equivalent to two to three years’ worth of revenues.
Megawide’s order book at the end of March this year was reported to be at around P45 billion.
For the first quarter of 2024, the company swung to a net profit of P183.4 million from a net loss of about P7.4 million a year earlier.
Megawide also targets a higher passenger throughput this year at the Parañaque Integrated Terminal Exchange (PITX), its landport business.
“PITX last year hosted more than 100,000 passengers daily, the highest since it opened six years ago. And we target to serve 40 million passengers this year,” he said.
He said they also plan to create a “diverse mix of high-yielding tenants to spur passenger spending in the terminal area.”
In real estate, Megawide’s wholly owned subsidiary PH1 World Developers will need to complete its projects on time to be able to convert its P3.2 billion reservation sales into revenues, he said.
“We will complement this with strategic project launches, preferably via asset-light models, to sustain revenue generation and increase market share while managing the balance sheet.”
The company’s debt-to-equity ratio has improved to 1.9 times in 2023 from 2.33 times in 2022, he noted, adding that they plan to further bring this down to 1.4 times.
Meanwhile, Saavedra touted the company’s environmental, social and governance advocacy and called for a stronger commitment from all stakeholders “to achieve our triple bottom line objective of people, planet, and profit for the benefit of generations to come.”
Megawide shares dropped by 0.34 percent to P2.94 each on Wednesday, while the benchmark Philippine Stock Exchange index finished higher by 1.43 percent.
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