Robinsons Land to form, list office REIT company

Gokongwei-led Robinsons Land Corp. (RLC) plans to spin off some of its office property assets into a real estate investment trust (REIT) company that will list on the Philippine Stock Exchange next year.

But instead of using Altus Property Ventures Inc.—an existing subsidiary that listed by way of introduction last June—RLC is looking to create an entirely new REIT company.

“New listing is the intent,” RLC president Frederick Go said in a text reply to the Inquirer.

“It will purely be an office REITco. We plan to inject several of our office assets into the new REITco,” he added.

REIT is a corporation that primarily invests in income-generating real estate assets such as office space, shopping malls, service apartments, hotels, hospitals and warehouses. It gives investors an opportunity to invest directly in the finished projects rather than the developer itself. This is meant to attract dividend-seeking investors because the REIT law requires the distribution of at least 90 percent of income as dividends annually.

This is a new asset class that allows property developers to recycle capital to fund more projects.

Currently, RLC has 25 office buildings with total net leasable area of over 600,000 square meters.

In the first nine months of the year, RLC’s office buildings division posted a 20-percent year-on-year growth in revenue to P4.34 billion despite the economic downturn caused by the prolonged coronavirus pandemic. Cash flow generated from this segment escalated by 23 percent to P3.82 billion.

RLC’s office division continues to increase leasable space and expand its portfolio of flexible workspace under the work.able brand, which currently has operational sites in Pasig and Quezon City.

PSE president Ramon Monzon earlier said there were two to three prospective new listings in the coming months.

Aside from RLC, DoubleDragon Properties Corp. has announced plans for a REIT initial public offering worth nearly P17 billion. It plans to infuse its single most valuable property portfolio—DD Meridian Park in Pasay City where the company’s headquarter office is—into a REIT with a basket of assets estimated at P50.89 billion, one-third of which will be sold down to the public.

The first REIT in the country, AREIT Inc. which is sponsored by Ayala Land Inc., sold P13.6 billion worth of shares—mostly secondary shares—during its maiden offering last August. INQ