SM Investments Dislodges PLDT as Most Valuable Philippine Stock

SM Investments Corp. (SM) has supplanted Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. (TEL) as the nation’s biggest stock with the fastest economic growth in two years tilting consumer spending in favor of homes and leisure over mobile phone use.

SM Investments, the holding company of the country’s richest man Henry Sy, rose 0.2 percent at the close in Manila, boosting its market capitalization to 549.5 billion pesos ($13.4 billion), compared with a value of 546.6 billion pesos for Philippine Long Distance, or PLDT.

Shares of SM Investments have rallied 51 percent this year as the fastest economic expansion since 2010 boosted profits at the company’s retail, property and banking ventures. PLDT, the nation’s largest phone company, trailed with a 1.3 percent gain as rising competition and a shift from calls and text messages to social media offered by Facebook Inc. and Twitter Inc. squeezed earnings.

Manila-based SM Investments owns the nation’s biggest grocery and department store operators. It also owns BDO Unibank Inc. (BDO), the largest bank by assets, and SM Prime Holdings Inc. (SMPH), which operates 46 shopping centers in the Philippines and five in China.

To contact the reporter on this story: Ian Sayson in Manila at isayson@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Allen Wan at awan3@bloomberg.net