By Richmond Mercurio (The Philippine
Star) | Updated April 7, 2015 - 12:00am
MANILA, Philippines - Ayala Land Inc.
(ALI) has started the ball rolling for its planned P7-billion debt sale to
partially finance its record P100-billion capital expenditures (capex) this
year.
In an interview, ALI vice president
and treasurer Augusto Bengzon said the company is targeting to complete its
P7-billion bond issuance by the end of this month or early next month.
“We are now undergoing institutional building.
Price setting should happen in the next two weeks. After which, we go to a
one-week offer period,” Bengzon said.
“We are already offering the next
tranche of our corporate/retail bonds worth about P7 billion. That’s the
balance of the P15 billion we sought for approval for last year,” added ALI
chief executive officer Jimmy Ysmael.
The property arm of the Ayala
conglomerate last year raised P8 billion from the initial tranche of its
P15-billion bond issuance.
The upcoming P7-billion bond offering
will kick-off ALI’s plan to borrow about P15 billion to P20 billion this year
to support its aggressive expansion program which will entail a record
investment of P100 billion.
Aside from this month’s issuance,
Ysmael said the property giant is also eyeing to raise P1 billion to P2 billion
more through the offering of its “Homestarter” bonds.
ALI last year deferred the issuance of
up to P5 billion worth of Homestarter bonds after already completing its
fundraising activities for the year.
“We are looking at Homestarter bonds,
that’s a small issue maybe P1 to P2 billion. The rest are bilateral loans at
the subsidiary level, accessing the bank lines directly available,” Ysmael said
referring to the company’s planned borrowings this year.
ALI’s net income grew 26 percent last
year to P14.8 billion, riding high on the positive momentum of the country’s
real estate sector.
The robust performance of its property
development and commercial leasing operations, which increased 21 percent and
18 percent, respectively, powered the 18 percent-growth in ALI’s real estate
revenues to P93 billion.
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