By Neil Jerome C. Morales (The
Philippine Star) | Updated December 2, 2013 - 12:00am
MANILA, Philippines - The Gotianun
family’s Filinvest Alabang Inc., developer of Filinvest City in Muntinlupa, is
boosting its recurring income portfolio through commercial and office
developments in the next five years.
Aside from more lifestlye offerings,
the 244-hectare Filinvest City is being groomed as a “garden city” mixed-use
development, an official said.
“This year we completed three
buildings so now we have 400,000 square meters of gross leasing area,” said
Filinvest Alabang executive-vice president Catherine Ilagan.
“The target in the next five years is
to double it. The BPO (business process outsourcing) market remains very strong
and Alabang is a good market because of available workforce,” she said.
To date, the property firm has a BPO
building in Northgate Cyberzone, the 18.7-hectare information technology park
within Filinvest City. It is also putting a new office building in the
Alabang-Zapote road.
“We also recently bought two lots in
Spectrum district near the Filinvest Tent area for the construction of office
space next year,” Ilagan said.
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“BPO gives us steady leasing income.
It is part of our strategy of growing the business,” Ilagan said, adding that a
multi-national firm will be the new BPO building’s tenant.
For the commercial segment, Ilagan
said the expanded Festival Supermall
will be ready by Christmas time.
The commercial developments will cater
to the BPO workforce’s increasing demand for lifestyle offerings in Alabang.
Aside from new residential, commercial
and office buildings, Filinvest City will be developed into a “garden city.”
“With new masterplan, we designated a
few areas which we will call district parks,” Ilagan said.
Several portions of Filinvest City
have been designated as locations for green projects like parks, which would
increase the brand differentiation of the mixed-use development compared with
other business hubs in Metro Manila, Ilagan said.
Aside from new projects that will
increase the property value of the Filinvest City, Ilagan said the company is
also limiting the release of inventory. So far, 90 hectares of the 244-hectare
property have yet to be fully utilized.
In January to September, Filinvest
Alabang’s revenues and other income jumped 29 percent to P2.16 million from
P1.68 million a year ago as it sold more commercial lots.
Filinvest Development Corp. is the
flagship investment firm of the Gotianun family and the parent firm of
Filinvest Alabang.
In the nine-month period, FDC’s
consolidated net income jumped 26 percent to P4.3 billion from P3.4 billion a
year ago while consolidated revenues picked up 24 percent to P25.6 billion from
P20.5 billion due to robust income from the banking and property units.
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