8990 Group upbeat on mass housing

Low-cost residential developer 8990 Group, which has backdoor-listed on the local stock exchange through IP Converge Data Center, is upbeat on the prospects for the mass housing business this year.

In a statement, 8890 president and chief executive Januario Jesus Atencio said the company was on track with its goal of selling to the property market 7,808 units valued at P6.6 billion for the full year.

For the first half of 2013, sales take-up stood at 3,800 housing units.

The company’s unaudited gross revenues for the first semester grew by 56 percent year-on-year to P3 billion while net income surpassed last year’s figures by 76 percent to more than P1.6 billion.

“We achieved in six months what took us 12 months last year to make,” Atencio said.

“With two more quarters to go, we remain bullish not only with the housing sector but also with our country’s macro-economic and political environment,” he said.

Atencio said the “the need for low-cost housing remains strong with 4.1 million units of unserved demand, growing at 5 percent a year.”

He added that interest rates remained low and conducive to affordable housing finance.

He also expressed optimism on the continued inflow of overseas Filipino remittances and that it would support housing purchases and monthly amortization payments.

With ample liquidity in the financial sector, Atencio said the housing firm had access to an array of credit lines and development financing options, thus boosting the implementation of “new and alternative ways for housing finance.”

The 8990 Group has mass housing projects all over the country including the Deca Wake Board Park in Angeles and Davao cities.

It plans to expand its landbank by at least 200 hectares with the purchase of new properties for development in the National Capital Region, Cavite, Cebu, Davao and Iloilo.

IP Converge used to be a cloud computing/data center provider but these businesses were spun off to a privately held company and the publicly listed shell company sold to 8890 Group, providing a backdoor entry to the local bourse.