SM spends P1.6B on land acquisition

SM Prime Holdings Inc. has shelled out some P1.6 billion to buy a two-hectare land on Edsa-Guadalupe area in Makati.

The acquisition, property consulting firm Savills said in its second-quarter Asia-Pacific quarterly report, was in line with the current market trend in the country where developers are “consolidating big parcels of land to build self-sustaining, master planned townships.”

The section on the Philippines was written by KMC MAG Group managing director Michael McCullough and head of research Antton Nordberg.  KMC MAG is a local real estate services firm associated with the London-listed Savills.

With the Philippine economy continuing to outpace most Southeast Asian economies, the local real estate industry is seen to remain on its positive trajectory, the Savills report said. It noted that the local property industry had posted a record-high quarter for transaction volumes driven by large-scale land deals, with the volume estimated to be at $505 million in the second quarter.

The Guadalupe lot, formerly occupied by informal settlers, was purchased by SMPH from the Consunji group.–Doris Dumlao-Abadilla