By MST
Business | Posted on Mar. 03, 2013 at 12:02am |
[
manilastandardtoday.com ]
Her passion
for aesthetics and design coupled with understanding of the Filipino
middle-class market enabled Melesa Chua to establish a real estate empire that
builds and manages condominium towers, hotels, serviced apartments and
subdivisions in Metro Manila’s prime commercial business districts.
Chua, more
known for her nickname Elsie, is the president and chief executive of CDC
Holdings Inc., a private company which booked a profit of P109 million in 2012.
CDC Holdings is the parent firm of CDC Realty, Quadrillion Property Management
Inc. and Quadrillion Sales Inc. which were all established by Chua. Her
condotel projects are considered as the pioneer in the serviced apartment
industry in the Philippines.
With the help
of daughter Charlene Chua–Sy, who serves as the company’s executive vice
president, Chua was able to expand their clientele by tapping the lucrative overseas
Filipino market, which now accounts for about 60 percent of their home buyers.
Chua saw the
potential of the real estate market as early as the 1980s, after a stint in
banking. She wanted to be an architect,
but her father, Dy Piac Gam, advised her to study accounting.
“I really
love design and I love colors. It is
more of a passion. But my father was
against me becoming an architect and instead wanted me to become an accountant. My father said ‘just know how to count your
husband’s money.’ That’s why I entered
Accounting at the University of Sto. Tomas,” Chua says in an interview at the
Somerset Millenium Makati, one of the properties built and managed by Chua’s
CDC Holdings.
Her husband,
David Chua, is now the president of family-owned Melawares Manufacturing Corp.,
the biggest producer of melamine tableware in the Philippines. “Our family business is Melawares. That’s our bread and butter. We have 250 outlets all over the country,”
she says.
Chua, who
also studied Marketing Strategy at the Asian Institute of Management, considers
her father as her mentor in business.
Her father, who was from Amoy, China, taught Elsie and her siblings the
value of work. Her mother, Crisanta
Racelis of Bicol, taught them the importance of relationship with other people.
Chua studied
high school at Chiang Kai Shek College.
Although their family was relatively well off, her father made them
commute from their home in Caloocan City to their school. Chua says she now appreciates the wisdom
behind it.
She became a
banker at Solid Bank-Caloocan branch, where she learned the ropes of credit
financing. She eventually became the
youngest chief of accounts in Solid Bank’s history.
Chua
remembers the death of her parents in a car accident as the biggest trial in
life. As the eldest single child, Chua
promised on the funeral of her parents that she and her younger siblings would
never be poor.
While the
family had a solid business in Melawares, Chua did not lose her love for
design, which she found useful when she built her first home.
“It all
started when I first built my house in 1981.
That started my interest in designing houses. The business began by building and selling
houses, until we built townhouses, and later subdivisions. Then, when the trend of building condominiums
came, I created Crisanta, the celebrity tower.
It was followed by Platinum 1000 and Platinum 2000 towers [in
Greenhills],” she says.
Before
embarking on high-rise developments, Chua sold nearly 10,000 residential houses
and lots to the middle-income bracket through Silverland Realty &
Development Corp. which she headed as managing director.
In 1984, Chua
and her brothers, used proceeds from Melawares, to launch Crisanta Tower, named
after their mother. The initiative was
maverick at that time during the social upheaval following the assassination of
Benigno Aquino.
Encouraged by
the success of Crisanta Tower in Pasig City, Chua would launch other major
projects such as the development of properties in the Multinational Village subdivision
acquired from religious leader Mike Velarde in Parañaque City, Ayala Heights in
Quezon City, Macario Homes in Cavite, the Millennium Plaza on Makati Ave.,
Quadrillion Mansion in San Juan, 139 Corporate Center and Somerset Millennium
Suites Makati, Astoria Plaza in Pasig, La Louvre and La Joya de Sta. Rosa.
Millennium
Plaza, managed by an international hotel group, introduced the concept of a
“full-service apartment hotel” in the industry,
Chua would
soon embark on international expeditions to look for home buyers in Japan in
1992 and the Middle East in 2007.
Promotion of CDC properties brought Chua to various countries in the
Asia-Pacific region, the Middle East and Europe, where there are large
concentrations of Filipino workers and migrants.
CDC Holdings
now has global offices in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia; Doha, Qatar; Tokyo, Japan; and
Europe. CDC has a dedicated global team of over 300 sales professionals and
more than 140 marketing representatives.
Asked about
what sets CDC Holdings different from other developers, Chua says location,
concept and price make their projects more attractive to buyers.
“Location is
important in any development. Location
counts a lot and plays an important role for us. We consider the accessibility of the projects,
in terms of their distance from transportation and schools,” she says.
“We always
measure the distance of the projects in terms of how many minutes away from
Makati or from Ortigas. We always want
to be in central business districts,” she says.
Chua says she
prefers mixed-use developments that are strategically located. She says she also makes sure that home buyers
will enjoy the facilities and amenities such as large swimming pools, large
pavilions, landscaping, security and safety and exclusivity.
She says the
concept of the project is as important as the pricing. “Our prices are always 10 to 15 percent lower
than our competitors. That’s our
competitive edge,” she says.
She advises
Filipinos to invest in real estate, which she says has good returns. “If overseas Filipino workers invest in real
estate today and they come home five or 10 years from now, they will see the
value of their property appreciate,” she says.
“Tirelessly,
I encourage OFWs to invest, so that when they come back, they can start a
business. They should start
investing. And the best way to invest is
to save your money in real estate,” she says.
She explains
that a piece of real estate is useful in building a credit profile, which is
necessary if one is to borrow capital from the banks.
“This is the most
critical. Based on my experience, when
you don’t have an asset, if you don’t have a real estate, you cannot start any
business. That’s the reason why I
encourage them to buy real property,” Chua says.
Chua says
there are still pockets of lands that can be developed in Metro Manila, but the
challenge is how to find them, especially now that a lot of new developers have
joined the bandwagon.
Her latest
projects include the 1.9-hectare 11 low-rise condominiums called Lions Park
Residences in Sun Valley, Parañaque and the 1.4-hectare, nine-building Manila
Rivercity Residences set on the scenic banks of Pasig River in Sta. Ana,
Manila.
CDC Holdings
booked a net income of P109 million in 2012, up by 150 percent from just P50
million in 2011, as sales reached P1.14 billion.
“Amidst the
competitive and aggressive market, we were still able to hit the numbers that
we aimed for. Also important for us is
that we were able to deliver our commitments to our buyers and homeowners as we
planned,” she says. “I see the company
growing and opening more markets for 2013.”
The company
started pre-selling the Rivergreen Residences also in Sta. Ana, Manila. This year, it plans to launch Sentrale
project in Dian St., Makati City, as well as the Citadines Millennium Ortigas.
“The
Citadines Millennium Ortigas is also one of our highlights last year as this
displayed the trust and confidence of The Ascott Limited in CDC Holdings Inc.
as a property developer and for property management,” Chua says.
Chua says CDC
Holdings recently teamed up with SEC Japan to help provide professional
energy-saving elevator and maintenance solutions for its properties.
Her daughter
Charlene Chua Sy says the company expects revenues to double to P2 billion in
2013 from P1.14 billion in 2012. “We
have big plans for 2013 and beyond. We have started to move in to high-rise
development from medium-rise and we have many projects in the pipeline,” she
says.
The younger
Chua also revealed plans to offer private placements to foreign and local
investors to raise as much as P400 million to partly fund the P1-billion
capital expenditure in 2013.
Chua says
behind the success of CDC Holdings as a real estate conglomerate is a real
passion for what they are doing.
“The interest
should be there. For you to be
successful in business, your interest should be there,” she says. RTD
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