Filinvest Land secures P8.1-B fund for expansion

Gotianun-led Filinvest Land Inc. (FLI) has returned to the local bond market for the first time in five years, raising P8.1 billion from a warmly received public offering of securities that were listed on the local fixed income trading platform.

The offering consisted of two tenors. FLI’s three-year bonds were priced to yield 3.3353 percent a year while the 5.5-year bonds carried an interest rate of 4.1838 percent a year.

“With this bond issuance, FLI is now well-prepared for its planned expansion. FLI is targeting to further expand its recurring income portfolio particularly in the logistics/industrial and office space,” FLI president and CEO Josephine Gotianun-Yap said during the Philippine Dealing & Exchange Corp. (PDEx) listing ceremonies on Wednesday.

This latest listing brought the total amount of FLI’s bonds listed on the PDEx platform to P45 billion.

FLI’s latest bonds—which were rated “PRS Aaa” or the highest in the scale of Philippine Rating Services Corp. (Philratings)—were oversubscribed by P1.35 billion from the base offering amount of P6.75 billion despite the challenging period arising from the prolonged COVID-19 pandemic.

BDO Capital and Investment Corp., BPI Capital Corp., China Bank Capital Corp., East West Bank and SB Capital Investment Corp. served as joint lead underwriters and bookrunners, while First Metro Investment Corp. was the colead underwriter. China Banking Corp.-Trust and Asset Management Group is trustee for the transaction.

In the past five years since FLI last tapped the bond market, Gotianun-Yap noted that FLI had evolved from a mainly residential developer of mass market, affordable and middle-income housing units to a diversified real estate company with a growing recurring business, especially in office and shopping mall development.

FLI nearly doubled its recurring revenues in the last five years, contributing 48 percent of net income last year from only 29 percent in 2013.

“The company has also ventured into developing logistics and innovation parks that we envision to be the preferred location of logistics, e-commerce hubs and light manufacturing and storage operations,” Gotianun-Yap said. —Doris Dumlao-Abadilla