‘CityMall’ project to cost P24B
Property developer DoubleDragon Properties Corp., a joint venture between Mang Inasal founder Edgar “Injap” Sia II and Jollibee founder Tony Tan Caktiong, expects to invest close to P24 billion to build a chain of 100 community malls over the next five to six years.
Sia, who chairs DoubleDragon, said the planned rollout of the 100 malls under the “CityMall” branding would cost about P23.75 billion and bring to 700,000 square meters the leasable space inventory of CityMall Commercial Centers Inc. (CMCCI).
The shopping mall business under CMCCI is expected to become the company’s flagship business and a key component to meet its goal of becoming one of the country’s biggest property developers by 2020.
For the first 25 CityMalls that would be completed between now and the end of 2015, capital outlays were estimated at P6.35 billion, Sia said yesterday.
After raising equity through its upcoming initial public offering (IPO) worth as much as P1.16 billion, Sia said DoubleDragon would tap the debt market to augment the funding requirement for expansion.
“The company intends to offer P3 billion as first tranche of the fund-raising either [through the sale of] bonds or corporate notes or combination by the second quarter of this year,” Sia said.
The CityMall chain is envisioned to become one of the biggest independent community mall chains in the country with a footprint of about 5,000 to 10,000 square meters each. Each community mall will be located in prime locations across the country, mostly in Visayas and Mindanao.
Ahead of DoubleDragon’s IPO, tycoon Henry Sy-led SM Investments Corp. acquired a 34-percent stake in CMCCI but DoubleDragon kept a 66-percent interest as well as management control.
For each mall to be built under the CityMall network, about P270 million in investment would needed for those what would be built on land owned by the company, Sia said. For those to be built on leased properties or through a joint venture with landowners, investment cost would be about P200 million per mall.
