The share price of MREIT Inc., the real estate investment trust company of Megaworld Corp., rose 3.7 percent on its maiden offering Friday amid plans to boost its office portfolio over the next two years.
MREIT’s stock hit a high of P17.16 on Friday from its initial public offering price of P16.10 before closing at P16.70.
MREIT president and chief executive Kevin Andrew Tan said during the listing ceremony Megaworld would inject around 100,000 square meters of prime office assets from Eastwood City, McKinley Hill and Iloilo Business Park to the company by end-2022.
Megaworld also has 331,000 sq. m. of office space in Uptown Bonifacio in Taguig City that are scheduled for completion before the end of the year. Another 70,000 sq. m. of prime office spaces are set to be completed in three years.
“These prime office and commercial assets can be potentially injected into MREIT. With BGC having the highest office rental rates among major business districts in the country, these fresh assets can truly bulk up MREIT’s portfolio, increase its rental revenues, and of course, grow the distribution yields for our investors,” Tan said.
MREIT’s initial portfolio consists of 10 prime office buildings covering around 224,431 sq. m. in Eastwood City, McKinley Hill and Iloilo Business Park.
These offices are being leased by the biggest BPO companies operating in the Philippines.
“So far, we have poured in an estimated P150 billion into these three townships in over a decade that has translated into more than 130,000 jobs in IT and BPO, retail, hotel and tourism, construction, and in various industries that form part of our townships,” Tan said.
Megaworld is also constructing a new tower, Worldwide Plaza, which will be the future headquarters of the Philippine Global Service Center of JPMorgan Chase Bank N.A., the leading global banking and financial services provider.
MREIT is the fifth REIT company to have listed in the local bourse. It raised P15.3 billion from the maiden share offering.
Net proceeds from the offering will be used by Megaworld to fund more real estate projects across the country.
