PLDT, Filinvest in talks on campus-type HQ

Manuel Pangilinan AP FILE PHOTO

MANILA, Philippines—Telecommunications giant Philippine Long Distance Telephone Company (PLDT) is looking at a 5- to 10-hectare tract of land owned by property developer Filinvest Land Inc. in Muntinlupa City for its planned “campus-style” headquarters.

PLDT chair Manuel V. Pangilinan told reporters late Thursday that the telco was no longer interested nor was in talks with Alphaland Corp. for the purchase of the latter’s office building in Makati City.

Since PLDT is considering a new office location south of Metro Manila as a more viable option, Pangilinan said the company was in talks with the Gotianun-led property group on a potential site.

Filinvest Alabang Inc.—a joint venture of Filinvest Development Corp. and Filinvest Land Inc.—is behind the 244-hectare mixed-used development Filinvest City in Alabang, Muntinlupa City.

When asked if PLDT could also consider the soon-to-rise Vista City of Villar-led Vista Land and Landscapes Inc., Pangilinan replied that discussions on a potential new office site were not limited to the Filinvest group anyway.

Pangilinan said PLDT was not in a rush to move to a new headquarters as the company would first have to consult its employees to get feedback on the location. “Some live up north, so they could get stuck in traffic when travelling down south,” he noted.

The PLDT chief nonetheless said that a campus-style headquarters similar to the soon-to-rise second Apple Campus of the US tech giant augured well for telco firms.

“I would prefer a campus-style kind of headquarters. If you really dig deep into the telecoms world and even the media world, it is rapidly changing. The Internet is really affecting things. It will affect how people work and how they interact at work,” Pangilinan said.

“The traditional model is you functionalize [offices]—you assign different areas for finance, marketing, sales, admin departments. That’s why you build   buildings and assign floors [for each department], but the interaction is different. Apple’s headquarters building is shaped like a big pie; it’s a circular thing. I guess they determined that’s the way they want to interact at work and force people to dialogue with each other and work with each other—pretty much open and free,” Pangilinan further explained.

Meanwhile, Pangilinan echoed earlier pronouncements of PLDT president Napoleon L. Nazareno that the company “will meet the revised guidance [profit] for 2014”—a lower P37.5 billion from the previous goal of P39.5 billion.