ANDREW Tan’s Alliance Global Group Inc. (AGI) will add more townships next year as it vowed to do more in 2019 through a number of projects.
“Definitely, we are adding more townships. We will be introducing new townships, new projects for Megaworld. We will be launching new hotel projects as well, opening and starting the construction of new hotel projects outside Manila. So we continue to expand outside Metro Manila as we have forecast. We do believe in the expansion of our tourism projects,” said Kevin Tan, AGI CEO.
“For Emperador, we showed you a lot of new products; for McDonald’s, we are adding 50 stores next year. For Infracorp, we are now finalizing the concession agreement for both the Skytrain and Ninoy Aquino International Airports [Naia]. If that happens, we will be able to start with Naia by the third quarter and the Skytrain by the fourth quarter next year,” he said.
AGI is part of the consortium that will refurbish and operate the country’s main airport, while the Sky train is Infracorp’s unsollicited project that connects the MRT 3 to its property in the former military camp in Taguig.
Tan said on the property side, the company remains confident of the prospect of the office segment as business-process outsourcing firms are back, the first time the company admitted there was a contraction of BPOs over the past year.
“And so we are full steam ahead again with our BPOs’ expansion into various cities outside Manila,” he said. “On the tourism side, gaming, we are launching two hotels next year—Sheraton and the Okura in Newport City. And then for 2020, we are launching the Ritz Carlton,” Tan said.
“We will start the construction of our West Side City development by early next year in time to be finished by 2021,” Tan said, referring to the $1-billion integrated resort and casino in Entertainment City.
“We will be focusing quite a lot on entertainment. As discussed in the past, we want to create this sort Broadway of Asia concept there. We are putting together a few theaters-in- one. Because right now, the theater industry in the Philippines is growing, but we feel it’s very fragmented all over,” he said.
“We are looking at ways to integrate into one development where we can put theaters and entertainment facility. I think in that respect, it becomes a little bit more different from what the others are offering. We are not just purely gaming. There is also going to be a very big retail component with a lot of entertainment factors, as well,” he said.
AGI will continue to expand in existing estates and in the provinces, he said.
“We are going to be expanding quite a lot in Iloilo. Again, Boracay is back so we will be relaunching new projects in Boracay, Cebu and Davao, as well. And, of course, Pampanga and Bacolod,” he said.