By Thomas Black

(Bloomberg) -- Mexican homebuilder Urbi Desarrollos Urbanos SA seeks to double its profit in five years by partnering with landowners to boost home construction, Chief Executive Officer Cuauhtemoc Perez said.

The company aims to increase net income by 15 percent in each of the next five years and estimates 40 percent of its sales will come from partnerships with landowners at the end of the five-year period, Perez said in an interview during a border conference in Mexicali, Baja California. Mexicali-based Urbi had net income of 1.17 billion pesos ($110 million) in 2005.

``The business model that we've been preparing includes the possibility of involving owners of land as real estate partners,'' Perez said. ``With this formula, we're comfortable that with our financial structure we can reach our goal of doubling the company's profit in five years.''

The number of houses built in Mexico has surged since 2000 to an estimated 750,000 this year as the government housing agency offers more subsidized credits and banks cut mortgage interest rates by more than half to about 9 percent now.

Perez said the industry has set a goal of building a million homes a year by 2012, when President-elect Felipe Calderon is set to finish his six-year term. Calderon takes office on Dec. 1.

``We're convinced the housing program with continue strong,'' Perez said.

Urbi plans to build homes in more medium-sized cities through the land partnerships, in which the landowners will become ``concessionary partners and regional directors,'' Perez said. The company has already started pilot projects using the land partnerships, he said.

Urbi owns 2,800 acres of land, enough to build 150,000 homes, he said. Last year, the company constructed 24,869 homes.

Perez said he expects 2006 sales of between 9.9 billion pesos and 10 billion pesos and have earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization -- a measure of cash flow known as Ebitda -- of 2.6 billion pesos, compared with 2005 Ebitda of 2.14 billion pesos.

To contact the reporter on this story: Thomas Black in Mexicali at This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it