LISTED companies AllDay Marts, Inc. and AllHome Corp. are set to begin expanding their retail stores starting next year, its top official said.

“By next year, we will resume our expansion. We will start the expansion of AllDay and AllHome,” Manuel B. Villar, Jr., the companies’ chairman, told reporters in a recent briefing.

Mr. Villar said the companies’ expansion efforts would begin with smaller freestanding projects.

“Smaller siya pero pareho pa rin, freestanding pero mas maliit,” he said.

(It’s much smaller but still the same as previous projects, freestanding but smaller.)

He added that the Villar group’s retail businesses were largely affected by lower foot traffic mainly attributed to the pandemic.

“We will come back strongly next year,” he said. “Most of our [retail businesses] are mall-based.”

Both companies said earlier that part of the proceeds from their initial public offering would be used for store expansions, with the rest for debt repayment and capital expenditures.

AllDay conducted its maiden listing on the Philippine Stock Exchange in 2021, while AllHome held its market debut in 2019.

For the second quarter, AllHome reported an 8.1% decline in attributable net income to P229.85 million from P250.02 million, mainly attributed to higher expenses by 3.8% to P2.75 billion.

Its top line for the three-month period inched up by 3% to P3.12 billion from P3.03 billion in the same period last year.

Meanwhile, AllDay’s attributable net income for the second quarter fell by 4.4% to P83.40 million from P87.21 million a year ago.

Its revenues rose 6.8% during the April-to-June period to P2.46 billion from P2.30 billion in the same period last year.

The company’s first-half attributable income surged to P171.97 million, a significant rise from P11.63 million a year earlier.

Last Friday, AllDay shares went up by 0.6% or P0.001 to P0.169 apiece while AllHome shares rose by 1.25% or two centavos to P1.58 apiece last Friday. — Adrian H. Halili

Neil Banzuelo