Philam Life to invest P1B in ‘iconic’ Cebu building

Insurer Philippine American Life and General Insurance Co. (Philam Life) is investing P1 billion through its retirement fund to build a “very iconic” office building in Cebu Business Park as the group seeks to unlock values of its vast nationwide land bank.

In an interview, Philam Life president Rex Mendoza said the new office building—designed to be a twin-tower structure with a podium—would break ground soon and rise in front of retail hub Ayala Terraces.

Completion is expected within 36 months, Mendoza told reporters last week on the sidelines of the 20th anniversary celebration of Philam Life’s mutual fund unit, Philam Asset Management Inc.

The Cebu office building project will have anywhere between 16 and 20 storys and become one of the tallest skyscrapers in Cebu, Mendoza said.

About 60-70 percent of the office space will be up for lease and the rest will be for internal use, he added.

Mendoza said this was part of Philam Life’s move to “rationalize” its real estate assets across the country.

“We easily have 30 properties, some big, some small and we’re rationalizing. Some we’ll build on, some we’ll sell and we’ll buy new ones also,” Mendoza said.

The Cebu property, for instance, will rise on a vacant lot long held by Philam Life in its books.

The construction of the office tower will allow Philam Life to move its headquarters in Cebu—the country’s second most important metropolitan hub after Metro Manila—to a more central location.

“Our story in the provinces is the same story in Metro Manila,” Mendoza said, referring to the time when PhilamLife’s head office was in UN Avenue, Manila.

“We were locked up, held up in the wrong part of town,” he said.

“The move is to bring our offices to business centers that are new,” he added.

In Manila, Philam Life sold its UN Avenue property to SM Development Corp. and relocated its head office to Bonifacio Global City by renting office space.

Mendoza said Philam Life would have wanted to build its own office in BGC, but there was no more space suitable to its needs.

The lot bid out by state pension fund Social Security System, he said, was too big for Philam Life’s need.

“There was a time when Philam buys in growth centers all the time,” Mendoza said, noting that the group had missed out on landbanking opportunities in BGC.

Even in other areas like Iloilo, Mendoza said Philam Life was moving its headquarters from the pier closer to the business hub being built by Ayala Land.

Mendoza, a former Ayala Land executive, said it was a strategic move to build closer to where the new business hubs are.

“We’re renting in Iloilo for the meantime but we moved to the new business center. We’re looking for a new place to build on … we’re listening to offers,” he said.