Starmalls sets stock offer

VILLAR-LED shopping mall developer Starmalls Inc. is preparing for a follow-on stock offering next year to fund its expansion program.

AllHome—the one-stop-shop retailing arm of the Villar group of companies and also the anchor tenant in Starmalls—will likewise be expanded across the country. AllHome, along with other retailing businesses, is under a separate holding firm that the Villar group also wants to take public in about two years.

In a media briefing Friday night during the opening of AllHome’s ninth store in Starmalls Las Piñas, Starmalls chair Manuel Villar Jr. said the shopping mall developer would open three malls this year in Taguig, Bataan and Sta. Rosa, Laguna.

Separately, two other malls will be opened by the Villar group under Vista Land & Lifescapes’ Vista Mall brand.

Starmalls, for its part, will also expand some of its mature shopping malls where there is still enough space to increase retailing area. For this year, expansion for Las Piñas, San Jose and Alabang locations are in the pipeline.

For 2016, Starmalls will open five malls. Investment in each new mall is estimated at P1.5 billion to P2 billion. Villar said Starmalls was aiming to open five shopping malls each year.

“Follow-on offering for Starmalls is possible by next year,” Villar said. “We were really preparing an IPO (initial public offering) for Starmalls to continue its expansion.”

Starmalls listed on the Philippine Stock Exchange in 2012 using Polar Property Holdings Corp. as its backdoor ticket. The company now has a portfolio of 13 shopping malls after starting out with only three in Metro Manila.

By end-2015, Starmalls will have 18 shopping malls, expanding to 23 by 2016 and 31 by 2017, based on a company briefer.