Ayala Land sells P1.41B worth of secondary shares in AREIT
Property giant Ayala Land Inc. has raised about P1.41 billion from the sale of additional secondary shares in pioneering real estate investment trust (REIT) company AREIT Inc.
BPI Capital Corp. acted as joint placement agent and joint bookrunner for the sale of 44 million shares at P32 apiece. The price reflected a discount of 7.4 percent vis-a-vis AREIT’s closing price of P34.55 per share last Friday.
Proceeds from the transaction will be used to comply with the reinvestment requirement under the REIT rules and regulations. It can be recycled by ALI for other domestic property projects.
Robust investor interest
The deal was marked by “strong demand coming from long-only Philippine investors highlighting robust investor interest in AREIT following its recent outperformance as well as announcements with respect to enlarging its property portfolio,” BPI Capital said in a press statement on Monday.
“This transaction is part of a broader thrust to enlarge AREIT’s portfolio and reflects investor confidence in AREIT’s ability to operate and grow its business even amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic,” the investment house said.
AREIT intends to further increase its property portfolio by way of a property-for-share-swap whereby ALI will infuse a selection of properties valued at P15.5 billion.
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Since raising the curtain for REIT as a new asset class in the country in August last year, ALI has been carving out more and more commercial property assets to infuse into AREIT. REIT gives investors the option to buy into a portfolio that is already earning money, such as residential and office rental units, hotels, hospitals, shopping malls and other infrastructure ventures.
ALI is set to increase AREIT’s leasing portfolio to 549,000 square meters from 344,000 sqm and hike deposited property value to P52 billion from P37 billion.
