MANILA - Upscale property developer Anchor Land Holdings Inc. said Friday its earnings for the first 9 months of the year already surpassed its earnings for the full year 2008, positioning the company for another record performance this year.

In a statement, Anchor Land said its net inocme rose to P308.58 million in January to September 2009, up 61% from the P191.38 million recorded in the same period last year, and already higher than the P236 million booked for the whole of 2008.

This as revenues hit P1.48 billion, up 55% from the P953.4 million in the first 3 quarters of 2008 and 8.8% from the P1.36 billion for the whole of last year.

Company officials said strong real estate sales and a higher project completion rate continued to drive Anchor Land’s profitability, with more developments lined up for launching before the end of the year.

"We have surpassed last year’s earnings, and this is a solid testament to the company’s sustained growth and profitability since we went public 2 years ago," Anchor Land Chairman Stephen Lee said.

"We continue to defy the downtrend in the industry, and we are quite confident that we would be able to continue our good performance as we prepare to launch more projects before the end of this year," he added.

Anchor Land has completed its second luxury condominium, the 39-storey Mayfair Tower along UN Avenue in Manila, while the third, Mandarin Square, is 92% complete as of end-September.

The company broke ground for its fourth project, the Solemare Parksuites at the Aseana Business Park in Paranaque, in December last year. Sales from this twin-tower development started to come in last July.

Earlier, Anchor Land acquired the historic Admiral Hotel along Roxas Boulevard from the Lopez-Araneta family as part of its planned P4-billion investment in the Manila Bay area.