PROPERTY developer Ayala Land Inc. (Ali) on Wednesday said it will raise P45 billion from the debt market and bank loans this year to service its maturing loans and finance its general corporate requirements.
In its disclosure, the company said its board has approved the three-year shelf registration with the Securities and Exchange Commission of up to P50 billion in debt securities.
From the amount, the country’s second-largest property developer will immediately use P16 billion worth of retail bonds that it will also list at the Philippine Dealing and Exchange Corp. (PDEx).
It will also enroll P4 billion in qualified buyer notes with the PDEx, a debt exempt from registration with the regulators. The remaining P25 billion will come from bilateral term loans, it said.
The company’s board also approved the declaration of dividends of P0.26 per outstanding common share.
“This first-half regular cash dividends reflect a 3-percent increase from last year’s first-half dividend per share of P0.252. The cash dividend will be payable on March 29, 2019, to stockholders of common shares as of record date March 13, 2019,” it said.
It also approved an employee-stock ownership plan granting its qualified executives stock options of up to 14.43 million common shares at a subscription price of P44.49 per share.
The price is the average of its common shares at the Philippine Stock Exchange over the last 30 trading days as of February 26, 2019, it said.
Ayala Land earlier said it will spend P130 billion in capital expenditures this year, an 18-percent increase from last year’s P110 billion in actual spending.
Augusto Cesar D. Bengzon, CFO and treasurer of Ali, said 41 percent of this year’s capex will be for residential development, 23 percent for its leasing projects, 15 percent for land acquisition and the remaining will be for general corporate purposes.
Last year the company launched P139.4 billion worth of residential and office projects. Reservation sales reached P141.9 billion, 16 percent higher than the P122 billion attained the previous year, driven by strong demand from local and overseas Filipinos which accounted for 82 percent of total sales. Net booked sales grew 14 percent to P110.8 billion, from P96.9 billion the previous year.
Revenues from the sale of residential lots and units rose 18 percent to P94.6 billion in 2018, while revenues from the sale of office spaces reached P11 billion, 16 percent higher and driven by bookings from One Vertis Plaza in Vertis North, Quezon City, and The Stiles Enterprise Plaza in Circuit Makati.
The company opened three new malls in 2018, namely Circuit Mall in Makati with 52,000 square meters of gross leasable area, Capitol Central Mall in Bacolod with 67,000 sq m and One Bonifacio High Street in Taguig with 23,000 sq m. This brings the total gross leasing area of shopping centers to 1.9 million sq m at the end of 2018.
Revenues from shopping centers reached P19.9 billion last year, 13 percent higher than a year ago.