Updated July 01, 2009 12:00 AM [ philstar.com ]
MANILA, Philippines - Robinsons Land Corp. (RLC), the property unit of the Gokongwei’s JG Summit Holdings Inc., has secured the Securities and Exchange Commission’s approval to issue P3 billion worth of bonds, with an option to raise it to P5 billion.
The bonds, which will be issued in tranches, have a maturity of five to seven years.
The bond issuance was assigned a PRS Aaa rating the highest such rating by domestic credit rating agency PhilRatings. This means the issuer’s capacity to meet its financial commitment on the bond issue is extremely strong.
In assigning the rating, PhilRatings took into account RLC’s consistent robust operating profit and strong cash flow from a diverse portfolio of real estate assets.
“Using conservative assumptions, projected cash receipts of RLC are expected to comfortably service debt obligations over the term of the rated issue. Its capital structure is similarly expected to remain conservative,” PhilRatings said.
“While the formerly optimistic outlook for the real estate industry over the next few years has been tempered due to the global credit crisis, RLC is expected to remain resilient even in such an environment given its conservative financial policy and its prudent approach to pursuing its various projects,” PhilRatings added.
RLC has set a capital expenditure program of P8 billion this year to bankroll the construction of new shopping malls, office buildings, residential units and a chain of budget hotels.
The company is opening five new malls this year, which will make available an additional 71,000 square meters of gross leasable space. By the end of September this year, RLC’s shopping mall network will increase to 26 from only 21 a year earlier.
In the first half of its fiscal year ending September 2009, RLC reported a 11 percent growth in net earnings to P1.62 billion. Revenues reached P5.1 billion, P2 billion of which came from the commercial centers division or an increase of 10 percent from the previous level.
Significant growth contributors were the Metro Manila malls led by the Midtown Wing of Robinsons Place Manila. Other provincial malls also posted decent growth in rental revenues while significant rental increment was also contributed by the newly opened mall in Cabanatuan City, Nueva Ecija.– Zinnia dela Peña
_____________________________________________________________________________________
