Ayala Land discloses growth strategies

Property giant Ayala Land Inc. plans to venture into the affordable hotel property business and expand its industrial estate developments to establish new growth areas as a full-range property developer.

In a briefing after the company’s stockholders’ meeting on Wednesday, ALI officials announced plans to develop a new hotel chain under a new homegrown brand that would offer rooms for $60 a night, half the price of the group’s boutique brand Seda.

This is part of ALI’s strategy to establish “representation” in different market segments and cover a broader market, said ALI president Antonino Aquino.

Jose Emmanuel Jalandoni, ALI capital and hotels group head, said the first of such “affordable” hotel projects would break ground by the fourth quarter of this year at the group’s newly acquired property in Muntinlupa—the “South Park District,” which used to be the site of a Nestle coffee factory.

A typical affordable hotel project has 150 to 200 rooms, Jalandoni said.  After the Muntinlupa project, plans are under way to put up similar hotels in Iloilo and Bacolod.

By 2015, ALI expects to have built up a portfolio of 4,000 rooms. In 2012, it opened the 280-room upscale Fairmont Hotel and the 32-room Raffles Suites. Its first homegrown hotel brand Seda also opened in Bonifacio Global City (BGC) and Cagayan de Oro, adding 329 rooms.

In the leisure estate segment, a fourth resort in Palawan was also opened, Pangalusian Island, with its 42 new villas.

Last week, ALI opened the 348-room Holiday Inn Suites in Makati and Seda Davao. More Seda hotels are expected to rise in Quezon City, Taguig (at the former FTI Complex) and Nuvali by next year.

Although industrial estate has been a laggard among different property segments in the country, ALI believes it would be able to catch up soon.

“We certainly feel that manufacturing is back,” Aquino said, noting that ALI’s Laguna Technopark was running out of capacity. He said ALI was in talks to acquire additional pieces of property for industrial estate development in the Calabarzon (Cavite-Laguna-Batangas-Quezon) area.

Pampanga is another area being considered by ALI for such types of development.  Asked whether ALI is also looking outside Luzon, Aquino said the company would always look for opportunities.

During the stockholders’ meeting, ALI chairman Fernando Zobel de Ayala said there were “indicative signs of a revival in the manufacturing sector as the country becomes a compelling alternative to our Asian neighbors.”

Likewise continuing is ALI’s plan to expand its residential, shopping mall and office portfolio.  For shopping malls, a total of 125,000 square meters in gross leasable area (GLA) will be opened this year and ALI will break ground for new sites that will contribute another 220,000 sqm.—Doris C. Dumlao

Originally posted at 05:45 pm | Wednesday, April 17, 2013