DoubleDragon sells P5B debt notes

PROPERTY developer DoubleDragon Properties Corp. (DD) has raised P5 billion from the sale of seven-year debt notes to selected institutional investors.

DoubleDragon told the Philippine Stock Exchange on Monday that it had sold seven-year corporate notes at fixed interest rates to finance its various ongoing projects.

“This signifies strong confidence in DoubleDragon’s strategic direction and will add momentum to the company’s targeted rollout of 100 CityMalls by 2020,” the company said.

Unlike retail bonds, which are sold through a public offering and must go through a more tedious regulatory approval process, corporate notes are a quicker fund-raising option for top-tier corporations as they are sold to no more than 19 selected institutional investors.

The cost of this new borrowing via private placement of debt was not disclosed but DoubleDragon said its financial leverage ratios remained healthy with debt to equity at 1.07x and net debt-to-equity at 0.58x at end-2014.

“With the addition of the P5 Billion in seven-year corporate notes, the company will continue to have sound financial leverage ratios,” the company said.

Through its flagship subsidiary CityMall Commercial Centers Inc. (CMCCI), DoubleDragon plans to build a chain of 100 community malls across the country. Under this “CityMall” brand, the company envisions to build one of the largest community mall network in the Philippines with floor areas of about 5,000 to 10,000 square meters in each location and will be located in prime locations, mostly in Visayas and Mindanao.

By June 2015, DoubleDragon expects to have 25 CityMalls in different stages of completion, majority of which are already under construction to date. The company said this should ensure that it would meet its target completion of 25 CityMalls by the end of this year.

“DoubleDragon has already secured more than half of the land required to develop its targeted one million square meters of total leasable space within the next five years. Only a little over a year since its initial public offering in the Philippine Stock Exchange, the company has been able to consolidate a string of prime commercial properties across the country totalling to about 35.2 hectares,” DoubleDragon Chairman Edgar ‘Injap’ Sia II said.