DoubleDragon Properties Corp. plans to raise at least P5 billion from a planned Real Estate Investment Trust offering.
DoubleDragong chief investment officer Hannah Yulo said in an interview over the weekend at the sidelines of a recent REIT forum the company was just waiting for the government to revise the minimum public ownership requirement on REIT companies.
Yulo said the group had several assets that could be placed under a REIT company, including its malls, hotels, as well as office buildings and industrial hubs.
“There are only a handful of companies in the Philippines that have accumulated a substantial portfolio of completed revenue-generating leasable properties and DoubleDragon is one of them. So we are just waiting for REIT laws to be further refined,” Yulo said.
“We look forward to the opening of the REIT market in the Philippines as it will enable DoubleDragon to unlock the value of its string of prime properties as well as generate new capital that will further boost the company’s balance sheet and enable it to grow its portfolio of leasable space,” she said.
Yulo said DoubleDragon might initially select more mature assets, especially community malls and office developments, for the planned REIT offering.
“It could be the malls or office or a combination of both. We could have basket of malls and office buildings and will just continue to infuse the assets as the buildings become more mature,” Yulo said.
She said DoubleDragons’ completed community malls were 93 percent leased out while completed office buildings were 100 percent leased out.
Yulo also said the company was in preliminary discussions with foreign and local underwriters for the company’s planned REIT offering.
DoubleDragon plans to use proceeds from the planned REIT offering to further expand the company’s leasing business.
“While we are fully funded for our projects until 2020, we have not revealed our plans beyond 2020 and we have significant growth plans which we see coming from hospitality and industrial sectors,” Yulo said.
DoubleDragon by 2020 plana to build 1.2 million square meters of leasable space from several rental businesses that include retail leasing, office leasing, industrial leasing and hotels.
The Securities and Exchange Commission earlier said it would soon come up with amendments to the REIT rules, which would lower the minimum public ownership requirement to 33 percent.