The state-run Government Services Insurance System plans to dispose of real estate properties in the first six months of the year to boost funds, a top official said over the weekend.
GSIS president and general manager Robert Vergara said the pension fund was reviewing the properties up for sale to determine their minimum price.
“We’re going through our properties and we’re conducting appraisals, we need to do that to set a minimum price, to the extent that we have time to do something, then the idea is to try to get one auction going this year in the first half of the year,” Vergara said.
GSIS last year had planned to dispose three properties that could have fetched P32 billion, or about 6 percent of the pension fund’s real estate portfolio.
The properties include the 18,500 square-meter property of Metro Manila Development Authority in Barangay Ugong, Pasig City and the 2,429 square-meter, old GSIS building in Legaspi Village in Makati City.
Another failed property disposal last year was the 18.4-hectare Payanig sa Pasig lot, just across the MMDA property, by the Presidential Commission on Good Government
“Valuation via an independent third party surveyor. I was hoping we would get some clue because of the Payanig sale but that sale sadly was not able to push through,” Vergara said earlier.
Other real estate assets of the pension fund manager include the 6,470-square meter Jai Alai property along Taft Ave.in Ermita, Manila; the two-hectare Water Fun amusement park in Sucat, Parañaque City; and the 1.6-hectare Philippine National Railways lot along Dagupan St., Tutuban area in Tondo, Manila.
“Last year we tried, we had a couple of failed biddings, sadly one of them is the Jai Alai property. In the event that that becomes too difficult, then perhaps we’ll just look at some time in the second half of the year,” he said.
Meanwhile, Vergara said 2015 was not a good year for GSIS following the challenges it faced.
“Were just waiting for the year end closing, we have some few items to finalize. I think definitely it would not be great as last year [2014] but given the challenges in 2015, I think we did alright,” he said.