CEBU-BASED property developer Cebu Landmasters Inc. said it is not keen in expanding in Metro Manila as it wants to focus instead in the Visayas and Mindanao region.
Jose Soberano III, the company president and CEO, said it does not want to lose its focus on expanding the vast regions outside of the country’s capital, where it deemed the company will grow better.
“We don’t know what will happen if we venture in [Metro] Manila. There are people who are more comfortable here [NCR], but for us, we are managing our margins and make things work. Vismin will be our turf,” Soberano said.
Soberano added the company has been approached many times by other developers for a possible joint venture but it has to decline the offer.
“We have to politely decline a lot of these opportunities [with other property developers]. It’s not because we don’t like their properties, but we ‘re just telling ourselves there are just opportunities waiting for us in Vismin,” he said.
Soberano said in the coming years, the company wants to increase the current 5-percent share of the recurring income to its earnings.
“We want that to grow recurring income to about 20 percent and, hopefully, that should come within five to seven years,” he said.
The company is in the process of selling its P2.5- billion initial public offering (IPO).
Landmasters decided to pull down its offer price to P5 per share from the previous indicative price of P6.56 per share to make it more attractive to investors as it tries to compete for investors’ money with the Ang family’s Eagle Cement Corp. The cement firm is raising P8.6 billion from its IPO, all coming from the domestic market.
Cebu Landmasters is selling 505 million common shares, 430 million of which are new shares forming the primary tranche, while 75 million are existing shares forming the secondary tranche.
The 75 million shares from the greenshoe will be from existing shareholders.
Part of the proceeds will be used for debt repayment and working-capital requirements.
The company earlier said it will be spending at least P12 billion over the next two years for its residential, commercial and hotel developments in key cities of the Visayas and Mindanao region as part of its expansion plans.
The majority of the projects will consist of over 7,000 economic housing units ranging from P800,000 to P1.7 million in Dumaguete, Cebu and Bohol, and Iloilo and Bacolod.
The firm will also launch mid-end units ranging from P1.8 million to P5 million in Metro Cebu, Cagayan de Oro and Davao City; premier residential units above P5 million in Cebu City; two mixed-use communities in Davao City; and two hotel projects in Metro Cebu.
The company posted revenues of P2.17 billion in 2016 and a net income of P702 million from the construction of economic housing and mid-end projects in Cebum including two of the fastest-selling residential condominiums in the metropolis.
Soberano said for the first quarter of the year, its reservation sales already reached P2.2 billion. For the entire 2016, it had reservation sales reaching P2.9 billion.
Its target markets include working people and retirees in the metropolitan areas of the Visayas and Mindanao, as well as overseas Filipino workers seeking to invest their remittances in real-estate offerings in their home provinces.
Image credits: Roy Domingo