Joselito Malig

Article (news)

Jekki Pascual

ABS-CBN News

SM Investments Corp. (SMIC), one of the country’s largest conglomerates, expressed Monday cautious optimism for 2026.SMIC President and CEO Frederic DyBuncio said all business units are expected to grow similar to its growth last year which was led by the banking unit, followed by property, retail, and the portfolio investments. However there are challenges, including the raging conflict in the Middle East.DyBuncio said they are still assessing the potential impact to the company and the country as it monitors the situation.“We still don’t know what the impact it will have on the Philippine economy. It depends on how long the war will last. But clearly, SM, the current ecosystem of the SM Group, we have a lot of profit drivers- the banks, the property, the portfolio investments, retail,” DyBuncio told reporters at a media briefing in Pasay.He, however, admitted that if the conflict continues, it will impact domestic consumption and increase fuel prices, which lead to inflationary pressures.“The OFWs [overseas Filipino workers] in the Middle East comprise about 16 percent of remittances coming into the country. So if those remittances do not come in or if it’s really gonna be difficult for them to come into the country, that might be a risk to some of the provincial areas,” he said.But SMIC still is optimistic for growth as it expands all its business units. It will open three to four malls this year, add residential buildings, grow its retail units, and strengthen its portfolio investments which include 2GO and the Philippine Geothermal Production Company. “2GO actually has performed extremely well in 2025 and we’ve actually breached over one billion dollar income for 2025. And the other one really helping us as well is the geothermal business. The geothermal business is something that we feel we really need in our portfolio,” he said.But if SMIC expands some businesses, it is also considering of shredding off some like its data center business and Atlas Mining.“Reduce the stake in Atlas Mining… Now that copper price and gold price have gone up, the shared value of Atlas is now around P9.60 or even P10, so we feel that it’s probably around the right time to sell the shares of Atlas,” DyBuncio said.SMIC continues with its P60 billon buyback program which it started last year. It asserted that it is undervalued hence the need to buyback shares. So far, it bought back P6 billion of shares.“The buyback program, we do it in a very discipline way because we’re also quite sensitive to the fact that as we buy back shares, the liquidity in the market goes down,” DyBuncio said.In 2025, SMIC’s net income mix is led by its banking unit at 49 percent, followed by property, retail, and portfolio investments. Revenues grew to P681.7 billion or 4 percent higher than 2024.“We remain cautiously optimistic for 2026. The momentum we saw in Q4 and over the Christmas period was good and the prevailing economic conditions that we’ve been seeing supports us feel good coming into 2026,” added Timothy Daniels, SMIC Head for Investor Relations.

SM Investments Corp. (SMIC), one of the country’s largest conglomerates, expressed Monday cautious optimism for 2026.

SM Investments Corp. (SMIC), one of the country’s largest conglomerates, expressed Monday cautious optimism for 2026.

SMIC cautiously optimistic for 2026 amid Mideast crisis

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SMIC cautiously optimistic for 2026 amid Mideast crisis

Jekki Pascual,

ABS-CBN News

Published Mar 02, 2026 09:12 PM PHT

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SMIC

SM Investments Corporation

SM Supermalls

Middle East

retail

Philippine economy

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