the Outsider - PSE Points to Ponder

  A cleaner read of SM Investments Corp.’s 2025 numbers suggests that the conglomerate’s most dependable engines — banking, mall rentals, and food retail — did most of the work, while weaker residential sales and pressure in discretionary businesses kept a lid on how much faster profit could grow. SM Investments Corp. delivered another year of record profit in 2025, but the more revealing story was not the headline growth rate. It was the composition of that growth. Consolidated earnings rose 10% to ₱90.5 billion on revenues of ₱681.7 billion, up 4% , and the group’s earnings mix remained anchored by banking at 49% , followed by property at 27% , retail at 18%, and portfolio investments at 6% . Those numbers point to a conglomerate whose profit base is increasingly shaped by recurring and essential-demand businesses rather than by the most economically sensitive parts of its portfolio.  That matters because SM is often shorthand for malls and shopping, a proxy for Philippine...

  Atlas Consolidated Mining & Development Corp. has become an awkward asset at a moment when its biggest blue-chip shareholder appears to be rethinking what belongs inside a modern Philippine conglomerate. In early March, SM Investments Corp. said it was weighing a reduction or possible exit from its Atlas stake, casting the miner as an outlier in a portfolio built around banking, property, retail, logistics, and energy. The timing is telling: copper and gold prices have been firm, but Atlas itself has spent the past two years slipping from profit into loss, even as its operating business continues to throw off cash. Atlas’ 2025 results show why a sale can be framed both as an opportunistic disposal and as a strategic reset. Revenue fell to ₱17.19 billion in 2025 from ₱18.63 billion in 2024 and ₱18.87 billion in 2023, extending a two-year slide in the top line. The company posted a net loss of about ₱246 million in 2025, slightly worse than the ₱231 million loss booked in ...

There is a certain kind of businessman who builds by acquisition, and another who builds by intuition. Henry Sy, Sr. belonged to the latter camp. When he opened a small shoe store in downtown Manila in 1958, he was not laying out a conglomerate strategy. He was watching customers—how they moved, what they wanted, what convenience meant in a country where modern retail was still a novelty. That instinct, more than any spreadsheet, became the foundation of SM Investments Corporation, the holding company that now sits at the center of retail, property, banking and a growing portfolio of strategic bets in logistics, energy and consumer businesses. By 2024, SM described itself as an “ecosystem of businesses,” but the phrase understates the scale of what was built: a company that has become inseparable from the routines of modern Filipino life.  From the beginning, Sy’s genius was not just in selling products, but in recognizing patterns before the market fully named them. Shoemart intro...

  We’ve been blogging for free. If you enjoy our content, consider supporting us! Disclaimer:  This is for informational purposes and is  not  investment advice. Figures are taken from company disclosures and exchange data; valuation ratios include the author’s calculations based on cited inputs. After spending much of the year grinding sideways, SM Investments Corp. (SM) is beginning to show signs that investors are leaning into the story again.The price is edging higher and the RSI is also turning up —a small but meaningful pairing that often reflects improving conviction rather than a one‑day bounce. This time, though, the uptick isn’t happening in a vacuum. SMIC’s ongoing share buyback adds a second tailwind to the tape : as the company steadily repurchases shares, it can tighten effective supply and reinforce the market’s sense that management is willing to support value during periods of mispricing. In its 17‑Q, SMIC disclosed a board‑approved buyback program ...

  We’ve been blogging for free. If you enjoy our content, consider supporting us! Disclaimer:  This is for informational purposes and is  not  investment advice. Figures are taken from company disclosures and exchange data; valuation ratios include the author’s calculations based on cited inputs. The market has been running a split screen: ICTSI’s valuation has been re-rated upward , while SM’s has been marked down —despite both being best-in-class franchises. The cleanest way to describe what’s happening is multiple expansion versus multiple compression : the market is willing to pay more for ICTSI’s earnings stream, and less for SM’s—even if SM remains profitable and resilient. The bridge between price and valuation is always the same question: what did the latest quarter do to conviction? In their 3Q 2025 SEC Form 17-Qs , ICTSI delivered the kind of numbers that investors tend to reward with a higher multiple— double-digit growth, margin lift, and strong operatin...