Property developer Vista Land & Lifescapes Inc. is spending nearly P5 billion over the next two years to build four new malls and expand an existing one as part of the strategy to build up recurring income, an executive said Wednesday.
Vista Land investor relations head Bryan Edang said in an interview at the sidelines of the company’s P5-billion fixed-rate bond listing at Philippine Dealing & Exchange Corp. that the company planned to build Vista Malls in Marilao, Iloilo, Cagayan de Oro and Naga.
The four new malls will add 116,000 square meters of leasable space to the group’s portfolio.
The company will also expand Evia mall in Daanghari which will increase its leasable space to 100,000 sqm from the existing leasable area of 61,000 sqm.
Vista Land said from 950,000 sqm of leasable space as of end-March 2017, it aimed to have 1 million sqm of total leasable space by end-2017 and 1.3 million sqm by end-2018.
Funding for the construction of the new malls will come from the P5-billion bonds due 2024 and 2027.
The bonds represent the first tranche of the company’s P10-billion bond shelf registration approved by the Securities and Exchange Commission.
“We have successfully and continuously improved the profile of the company. We have transformed the company from being the largest homebuilder in the Philippines to be one of the country’s leading property developers with acquisition of Starmalls in 2015,” Vista Land chairman and founder Manuel Villar said.
“We have now added a significant leasing components to our core residential development business. Our transformation puts into reality Vista Land’s expanded vision of creating multi-use communities that integrated residential and commercial developments,” he said.
The move to expand into leasing business will provide the company stability to its core residential business.
Vista Land, which has presence in more than 120 cities and municipalities, is also embarking on the next 100 new cities and communities in a bid to strengthen its leadership in the house-and-lot segment of the market.