Haus Talk kicks off 2022 IPO lineup with offering now sold out

Mass housing developer Haus Talk Inc. has raised the curtain on the 2022 domestic initial public offering (IPO) stage, with its P750-million worth shares selling out on Monday, the first day of offering.

Pitching to investors a new mass housing investment vehicle focused on pocket developments outside Metro Manila, the company led by the Madlambayan family of Pampanga is selling to the public up to 500 million primary shares at P1.50 per share.

“We believe that our offering is well priced and the size, given it is an SME (small, medium and emerging board) listing, is small enough for investors to pick up and hold over the medium term,” Terence Madlambayan, Haus Talk chair, said in a Zoom interview with Inquirer on Monday.

“We also understand from an underwriter, Investment and Capital Corp. of the Philippines (ICCP) that there is a strong take up of the QIB (qualified investor buyer, or institutional) tranche of the offering. Essentially all [shares] are committed already,” he added.

ICCP managing director Manny Ocampo added the offering would likely end up “well oversubscribed” by the end of this week. “We just started and we’re fully sold out,” he said.

Significant impact

Asked about the basis for the P1.50 per share valuation, Ocampo said since it would take about a year to implement the IPO proceeds, this equity deal would likely make a significant impact in terms of valuation by 2023.

“A lot of the funds go to new projects and those new projects will only really begin to kick in in late 2022 to 2023. So by 2023, at P1.50 [price per share] will be only about 12 times [price to earnings],” Ocampo said. “It’s very low.”

The valuation could be a little bit high for this year at about 15 to 16 times prospective earnings, but according to Ocampo, this is where comparable companies are currently at.

Haus Talk could deliver 200 to 250 housing units a year even during a pandemic, company president Maria Rachel Madlambayan said, but once pandemic restraints are over, she said output would grow exponentially.

The company targets local end-users, mostly working-class families, who need housing units worth as low as P750,000 for socialized housing to as high as P4 million for affordable housing.

Asked what differentiated Haus Talk from other developers targeting the same consumer segments, Rachel Madlambayan said: “I think it’s the quality because we source our own materials. Every angle of the construction is being handled by us. So we don’t outsource our production. We have our in-house team, so from the procurement of the materials, we know very well that these are all within the standards.”

Boost funding

Tentative listing on the Philippine Stock Exchange is on Jan. 17. This equity deal will give the company a market capitalization of about P3.75 billion.

Proceeds from the offering, which will run until Jan. 7, will boost funding for the company’s landbanking, project development and other expansion programs. Haus Talk plans to acquire land in Bacoor, Dagupan, Sta. Cruz and Antipolo.

To date, Haus Talk has 10 developments. It has four ongoing projects in various stages of progress. There are also three newly launched projects undergoing land development and preselling.

In 2020, Haus Talk generated P50.403 million in net profit out of P284.72 million in revenues. INQ