Merkado Barkada
November 12, 2025 | 8:20am
Ayala Land [ALI 19.20, down 1.1%] [link] teased its 9-month results, revealing that it made P21.4 billion over the three-quarter period, which was nearly flat from the previous year’s net income of P21.2 billion. In a disclosure on Nov. 10, 2025, ALI said consolidated revenues during the period reached P121.8 billion, down by 2.7% y/y, following a “softer residential performance.” Figures showed income from the property and development business edged down by nearly 1% to P75.9 billion. Meanwhile, revenues from leasing and hospitality portfolio rose 6% to P35.1 billion. ALI President and CEO Anna Ma. Margarita Bautista-Dy said the company “continues to navigate market challenges with discipline and focus.”
MB bottom-line: Headlines are meant to direct our attention, but when it comes to quarterly earnings, the strongest “signal” that we can take from a headline is in what is left unsaid. When profits are thicc and business is great, almost every quarterly earnings press release will lead with quarterly net income. Measure everything you read against this. If you don’t see a quarterly net income in the headline, that’s a red flag. What are they talking about instead? If they trumpet some other period of time, like “H1” in Q2, or “9M” in Q3, then you know they’re trying to hide current-quarter weakness in net income. If they’re talking about Q3 results but they’re focusing in on some other performance metric like consolidated revenue, that’s a red flag, too. The worst case is a combination of the two. Here, ALI is only flying one out of the two possible quarterly earnings headline red flags. It’s talking about net income (good), but using its 9M performance instead of talking about its Q3 performance (uh oh). It told us it’s made P21.4 billion in 9M net income. Subtract the P14.2 billion in H1 net income from its previous quarterly report, and we’re left with P7.2 billion in net income attributable for Q3/25. Compare that with Q3/24’s P8.0 billion net income attributable, and we can see why they’d rather not talk about Q3 net income: it’s down 10% y/y. “Flat” sucks, but it’s not as ugly as being down 10%.
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