‘Injap,’ Tan Caktiong raising funds for community malls venture

Property developer DoubleDragon Properties Corp., a joint venture between entrepreneur Edgar “Injap” Sia II and Jollibee group founder Tony Tan Caktiong, plans to open five community malls this year as part of its diversification into the retail-oriented property portfolio.

This portfolio of community malls called “CityMall” will get the bulk of the proceeds of a P1.16-billion initial public offering planned by DoubleDragon.

DoubleDragon filed last week with the Securities and Exchange Commission an application to sell 579.73 million new shares to the public at an offer price of up to P2 per share.

Sia, the company chair, told the Inquirer that the tentative listing date for DoubleDragon would be on April 11. The firm hopes to secure both the SEC and Philippine Stock Exchange approvals for the stock debut in four to five weeks from today, he said.

Asked why he is confident on tapping the capital market now when emerging markets are out of flavor, Sia said: “We think there are enough investors who can see the long-term value of investing in DoubleDragon, including businessmen in the countryside who can see the great potential of investing early in medium sized companies like DoubleDragon.”

DoubleDragon intends to sell 100 percent of the shares to local investors.

“For many years now, I have always wanted to list a company not only because it will keep you and the whole team on their toes to always be transparent, but also because being a public company gives you a chance to make many other shareholders move forward as you and the company move forward,” Sia said.

This IPO will bring to public hands up to 26 percent of DoubleDragon’s capital stock. At a price of P2 per share, the IPO will give the company a market capitalization of P4.46 billion.

DoubleDragon recently incorporated wholly owned subsidiary CityMall Commercial Centers Inc., which will be the umbrella company of all the CityMall projects. The long-term goal is to roll out 100 community malls by 2020.

“The plan is to open the first five CityMalls this year 2014, another 20 in 2015, and 25 in 2016, hitting a total of 50 in three years, and 100 by year 2020,” Sia said.

The group is set to break ground for the first CityMall in Roxas in March. The upcoming mall sits on a 1.2-hectare land and will offer a total floor area of 7,035 square meters, Sia said.

“We left out vacant a portion at the back for future use for a possible mid-rise residential or office/BPO (business process outsourcing) building, depending on the best use of the property in the future,” he added.

CityMall-Roxas is targeted to open by December this year.

“We have spent almost a year to come up with the CityMall prototype design and specs, we carefully studied the strengths and weaknesses of the existing community malls around and we tried to figure out how to further improve all the aspects, keeping in mind the side of the developer, tenant and customers,” Sia said.

“The typical design of the building will not only be an advantage on the branding and recall, but also on the speed of construction. The typical CityMall is estimated to be finished in only seven to eight months,” Sia said, adding that each mall would be equipped with solar and rain water collection system.

The CityMalls will be located in the provinces and more concentrated in the Visayas and Mindanao where the top five supermarket chains—Savemore, Puregold, Robinsons, Wellcome and Super8—are currently expanding, Sia said.