Robinsons Land Corp., the property development arm of the Gokongwei group, said it plans to start pre-selling residential projects in China by 2018.
Robinsons Land said in a recent analysts presentation it had already awarded the construction contract for the development of an 8.5-hectare residential venture in Chengdu, China.
The property, which was acquired by Robinsons Land from the government through a public bidding, would involve a residential project, with small portion for commercial development.
The project will have a total gross floor area of 220,000 square meters. Robinsons Land acquired the property in 2015 for $222 million.
The development”•the company’s first venture outside the Philippines”•will target the upper to middle-income market in China.
Meanwhile, Robinsons Land said it planned to open four malls and expand two existing ones this year. It also intends to open three new hotels”•Summit Galleria Cebu, Summit Tacloban and Go Hotel in Iligan”•and two office developments, in Naga and Davao this year.
The planned opening of new malls, hotels and office developments is expected to further boost its leasing business, which accounts for bulk of revenues.
Robinsons Land is currently the second largest mall operator and developer with 44 malls across the country with 1.27 million square meters of gross leasable space.
It is also a leading office and hotel developer with 325,000 sqm of office leasable space and 2,357 hotel rooms as of end March 2017.
The property firm earlier reported an 11-percent decline in first-quarter net income to P1.38 billion on lower real estate revenues.
Total real estate revenues fell 2 percent to P4.9 billion from last year’s P5.05 billion as sales from residential division declined 40 percent to P387.9 million.
The group’s commercial centers division grew 11 percent to P2.68 billion on streaky growth in rents and as well as rental revenue contribution of the new malls, while revenues from the office group increased 8 percent to P734.2 million.