BY RUELLE ALBERT D. CASTRO
[ Malaya.com.ph ] August 23, 2011
Listed Boulevard Holdings Inc. yesterday said it is developing the remaining 2,800 hectares of Puerto Azul in Cavite, days after announcing it is buying the company that owns the property.
BHI’s did not disclose the price of its acquisition of Cala Paniman Inc.
Cala is the developer of the 21-hectare Crestagrande Subdivision overlooking the South China Sea and Corregidor island.
BHI said Cala will be a co-master partner in developing the entire 3,000-hectare Puerto Azul complex (less an already developed 200-hectare portion), with selected foreign and domestic developers.
"Of this now prime coastal property spanning 7.5 kilometers from the mouth of Manila Bay to the West Philippine Sea (formerly South China Sea), BHI already owns 100 hectares in the Paniman Valley and Beach Cove," the company said.
BHI said the tourism potential of the property in Ternate, Cavite, is being boosted by the new Cavite highway-over-the-sea portion, which bypasses busy Bacoor and various towns.
The new highway has cut traveling time from 2.5 hours to under an hour to and from the Ninoy Aquino International Airport, the port of entry for many tourists. The new road opened less than four months ago.
"Moreover, with the President’s strong imprimatur, the Ternate-Nasugbu tunnel, the longest in the Philippines once opened, is set to cut travel time to the Batangas coastline from four hours to just under two hours by April 2012," the company said.
"The entrance of the tunnel is inside the complex, and the exit on the Batangas side is in the Limbones Cove, adjacent to the SMIC-Hamilo coast. Five bus lines have already applied for the Manila-Ternate route compared with only Saulog Lines in the preceding decades," the company added.
About 52 percent of the land mass of the municipality is composed of Puerto Azul, BHI said.
The owner of three to four companies owning the Ternate parcels is also the same majority owner of BHI, according to the company.
"So, Cala would be expected to inure substantial and preferential overage percentages, as it shall represent all dealings with foreign and domestic ventures into the complex, in behalf of the land owner," it said.
Overage means a sum that the vendor may be entitled to receive after completion of the sale if certain conditions are met.
Cala expects to sign "within days or weeks" a joint-venture deal with a "large-cap publicly listed conglomerate" over the Crestagrande Subdivision that will bring vertical and horizontal development to the property.
Cala will earn a 20 percent to 32 percent share from the revenues, said BHI.
The partner will also undertake a 10-year joint-venture partnership on a non-exclusive tenure with Cala in the Puerto Azul complex, "requiring no front-end monies for subsequent parcels of mutual choice."
BHI managers said they are talking with Shin Sang Soo, chairman of Resom Resort of South Korea, for a 40-year lease of 100 hectares in the Animan Valley to further develop a Robert Trent Jones Jr.-designed golf course and a 200-room semi-branded hillside resort hotel.
"Final talks are set in Korea in the first week of September. Part of the 100 hectares is directly owned by BHI," the company said.
Resom Resort is the largest timeshare group in South Korea.
"Lastly, BHI, led by its board member Ricardo S. Pascua Sr., continues to entertain two other large publicly listed conglomerates and their respective M&A departments, for some months now, for master partnership or outright sale of the complex. But the focus is on local partners, and foreign ones, who have the synergies and skills to execute the master-planned vision of the founder," BHI said.
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