Double Dragon starts P10-B offering

Property developer Double Dragon Properties Inc. started yesterday an offering of up to P10 billion worth preferred shares convertible into common shares, setting the annual dividend rate at 6.4778 percent.

The offering has been oversubscribed, with underwriters so far receiving P26 billion worth of demand—five times the base offering of P5 billion, DoubleDragon chief executive Edgar Sia II said.

Following the approval given by the Securities and Exchange Commission, Sia said the offering would run until April 7.

“The listing of the preferred shares is expected between April 8 and May 9 as soon as we get both the SEC approval of the amendment of articles (of incorporation) for the creation of preferred shares and PSE (Philippine Stock Exchange) board approval,” Sia said.

Mandated lead underwriters were BPI Capital and RCBC Capital while the co-lead managers were Abacus Capital and Investment Corp., BDO Capital Corp., PNB Capital Corp., UCPB Group and Unicapital Inc. The co-managers were AB Capital and ATR Kim Eng/Maybank Philippines Group, Sia said.

The preferred shares are offered at P100 each, with minimum investment at P50,000 and increment of P10,000 thereafter.

At the option of the investor, the preferred shares may be converted into common shares of DoubleDragon at a rate of one preferred share to one common share at any time starting the second anniversary up to the fifth anniversary of the issuance. Sia said this convertibility option was “to give the preferred holders possible future upside.”

“The string of hard assets that Double Dragon is building will continue to appreciate in value since all are located in prime commercial areas of Metro Manila for our office projects and prime commercial areas of the tier 2 and tier 3 provincial cities for our community mall projects across the Philippines,” Sia said.

Sia said he was glad that the offering had been warmly received by investors. “Positive developments like this fuel the whole Double Dragon team to continue its passionate execution toward the set goals of the company,” he said.

Double Dragon, previously known as Injap Land Corp., was started by Sia—who founded the Mang Inasal Chicken Bacolod restaurant chain—as a subsidiary of holding company Injap Investments Inc. HoneyStar Holdings of Jollibee Foods Corp. founder and former chief executive Tony Tan Caktiong later bought into the company, which thus became a 50-50 venture before it became a public company.

Bulk of the proceeds from the offering will be used to expand the group’s chain of community shopping malls under the “CityMalls” brand, which will have a total of 30 malls on stream by the end of this year, mostly in Visayas and Mindanao. Some will be used to construct Meridian Park, a 4.8-hectare office and commercial development at the corner of Macapagal Avenue and Edsa Extension as well as Jollibee Tower, a 40-storey corporate building at the Ortigas central business district. Doris Dumlao-Abadilla