[thestandard.com.ph]
posted May 15, 2016 at
11:35 pm by Jenniffer B. Austria
GT Capital Holdings Inc. of
tycoon George Ty will invest an additional P8.76 billion to increase its stake
in mass housing developer Property Company of Friends Inc., or Pro-Friends, to
51 percent.
GT Capital said it planned
to invest P6.2 billion to raise its stake in Pro-Friends to 42 percent by the
second half of 2016 from the current 22.68 percent that required an investment
of P7.24 billion.
GT Capital will further
invest P2.56 billion to increase its stake in the mass housing developer to 51
percent by the first quarter of 2017.
TY
“Total price for the 51
percent would be P16 billion. So we initially paid up P7.24 billion for the 22.68
percent stake. Then tranche two will be another P6.2 billion and the balance
that would bring us to 51 percent would be first quarter next year,” GT Capital
president Carmelo Bautista said.
GT Capital said funding for
the investment would come from internally generated funds and some short term
debt.
GT Capital’s investment in
Pro-Friends will stay at the holding level as the company has no immediate
plans of consolidating Profriends under property unit Federal Land Inc.
“Eventually, once we
identified synergies between the two separate businesses, the intention is to
consolidate but not in the near future,” Bautista said.
Bautista said Pro-Friends
this year would push through with plans to roll out 500 units monthly or 6,000
new homes this year.
“There is backlog in the affordable housing sector.
It’s affordable and it’s large segment
so we can build as many as possible,” Bautista said.
Federal Land will also
launch seven new projects this year, mostly residential developments covering
the high-end and mid market
Established in 1999,
Pro-Friends is today one of the country’s leading property developers, focusing
on the low-cost and economic housing segments, and retail and office space
leasing.
It has built and sold over
36,000 affordable homes in the provinces of Cavite and Iloilo. Its flagship and
largest project is Lancaster New City, which spans the areas of Kawit, Imus,
and General Trias in Cavite province.
Pro-Friends in 2014 had
planned to conduct an initial public offering to raise as much as P7.7 billion
in proceeds.
The company, however, did
not push through with the IPO and instead opted to tap GT Capital as a
strategic investor.
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