STATE-RUN Social Security System (SSS) plans to again bid out the long-term lease of a prime property near Manila Bay’s fast-rising gaming hub following a failed bidding last year.
SSS president and chief executive Emilio S. de Quiros also told reporters that they were considering to hire three fund managers that will manage P1 billion in investments each as soon as President Duterte has appointed the members of the Social Security Council, the highest governing body of the pension fund.
On the sidelines of SSS’s 59th anniversary celebration on Friday, De Quiros said they planned to publish the invitation to bid for the long-term, 10- to 20-year lease of the HK Sun Plaza property this month.
“The only reason why we’re leasing the HK Sun Plaza is that it is very close to the Entertainment City. The way we look at it, it may not be a good time, at this point, to sell it because we’ll see prices move up eventually. So we’re leaving it to the next administration, and later on whoever will manage SSS. We think he should keep it,” De Quiros explained.
In December last year, the SSS declared a failure of bidding because Filinvest Land Inc. did not submit its lease bid for the 25-year lease of HK Sun Plaza and an adjacent vacant lot.
Gotianun-led property developer Filinvest Land was the lone entity that had purchased the terms of reference for the lease of the HK Sun Plaza property covering a 44,000-square meter warehouse as well as the 6,000-square meter vacant lot located at the Financial Center area along Macapagal Ave. and Roxas Boulevard in Pasay City.
The SSS had pegged the minimum bid on rental rate at P16 million a month for the 25-year lease period, including a six-month fit-out period.
Besides the Pasay property, De Quiros noted that the SSS was also selling condominium units.
In an invitation to bid published last month, the SSS invited interested bidders for 19 condominium units, with each having two 13-square meter parking slots, as well as 17 extra parking slots located in Bella Villa One Condominium at No. 5 Hamburg Street, Merville Park, Barangay Merville, Parañaque City. These assets were worth a total of at least P134 million.
Also, De Quiros said they would again look for three fund managers after their search last year failed.
“The problem was [that] a lot of the banks and the trust companies [that expressed interest] had problems getting BIR clearances. We hope that they would be able to resolve it this year,” De Quiros explained.
The SSS had required interested fund managers to secure a tax clearance from the Bureau of Internal Revenue.
De Quiros said they planned to hire the fund managers before the year ends so that they could start investing next year.
The SSS chief said the venture would allow them to “test the waters” as he noted that the amount of funds to be handled by the fund managers—a total of P3 billion—was “very small” compared with the reserve fund of about P450 billion. “We would like to get the hang of it; we’d like to see how it will perform compared to in-house investment,” De Quiros said.