ALI grooms Prime Orion as logistics, industrial estate arm

Shopping haven for bargain hunters

Property giant Ayala Land Inc. is transforming Prime Orion Philippines Inc. (POPI) into its logistics and industrial estate arm with a P3-billion share-swap deal that will infuse Laguna Technopark Inc. (LTI) into this subsidiary.

ALI has agreed to exchange its 75 percent stake in LTI into additional shares in POPI, owner and developer of Tutuban Center, the popular bazaar in Divisoria.

POPI will issue 1.22 million common shares to its parent company in exchange for the stake in LTI.

This transaction will boost ALI’s direct ownership in POPI to 63.90 percent from 54.91 percent, ALI said in a disclosure to the Philippine Stock Exchange on Friday.

“Combining LTI and POPI will create a bigger entity that will pursue real estate logistics and industrial development and reposition POPI to be a leading real estate logistics and industrial estate developer and operator in the Philippines,” ALI said.

In a separate disclosure, POPI said its board had also approved the acquisition of the 75 percent equity interest in LTI from ALI.

A prime developer of industrial parks, LTI owns and manages the 460-hectare Laguna Technopark which spans portions of the cities of Santa Rosa and Binan in the province of Laguna. It also owns and operates the 118-hectare Cavite Technopark in the municipality of Naic.

Located in the CALABARZON (Cavite-Laguna-Batangas-Rizal-Quezon) region, LTI’s industrial parks have served as preferred locations of local and foreign manufacturing, processing logistics and distribution companies in the Philippines.

The documentation for the transaction is still being finalized. Target execution is within April this year, POPI said.