Mar 03, 2020
Villar-led home improvements retailer AllHome Corporation is confident that it can withstand the impact of coronavirus disease 2019 on its inventory as it remains optimistic about the company’s store expansion initiative.
“In case of a prolonged effect of the recent coronavirus disease (COVID-19) to China which serves as one of the major inventory sources of the home improvement players in the country, we can easily shift to our other existing sources like Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, India and even the United States. Our fresh funds indeed came in at the right time when it comes to our inventory management,” Benjamarie Therese Serrano, president of AllHome, said.
“When it comes to inventory sourcing for our stores, is was fortunate that we were able to get funding for our working capital in October last year through our initial public offering which contributed to our increased inventory cover. We already secured the needed inventories for our planned store expansions as well as for our existing stores which can last between 6 to 8 months,” she said.
In October 2019, AllHome raised P14.9 billion from an initial public offering. The proceeds will be used to fund the company’s capital expenditures and initial working capital for expansion, as well as debt repayment.
Ten of the 25 stores to be constructed in 2020 will be sourced from the IPO, AllHome vice chairman Camille Villar earlier said.
The company is also looking at a selling space of over 450,000 square meters by the end of 2020.
In 2019 it reached 313,000 square meters of selling space and said that it is on track to hit its store expansion program for 2020.
“Our expansion program is both sustainable and strategic by taking advantage of the synergies between our real estate companies such as Vista Land as well as the opportunities in the home improvement industry in the Philippines,” AllHome chairman Manuel Villar Jr. said.
The company registered 225% growth in net income for the first nine months of 2019 to P746.2 million from P229.7 million in the same period last year.
Total revenues increased by 72% to P8.2 billion from P4.8 billion in the comparable period a year ago.
Villar said that they are confident in ending 2019 with at least P1 billion in net income as the fourth quarter is typically their strongest due to the holiday season. — BM, GMA News
Author: Ted Cordero | Feb 19, 2020
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