BIZ BUZZ: SM’s growing Manila footprint

After bagging the right to redevelop the Harrison Plaza property in Manila, property giant SM Prime Holdings has continued to expand its footprint in the capital city with the acquisition of a smaller but strategically located property just beside the shopping mall complex.

We’re talking about the commercial strip right beside Harrison Plaza across the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas and beside Century Park Hotel. Our industry sources said the acquisition happened sometime during this COVID-19 pandemic and a spokesperson from SM confirmed the transaction, without providing additional details.

This property is much smaller than the 75,000-square-meter lot area of Harrison Plaza itself—maybe less than a third—but it can complement the latter’s entire redevelopment project, earlier estimated at P40 billion.

SM Prime plans to transform the Harrison Plaza area into a mixed-use development “comprising several residential towers and a world-class mall, similar to the Podium.”

The city government of Manila had brought in SM Prime—a long-time anchor tenant since the Harrison Plaza complex was inaugurated in 1976—as its new partner in the redevelopment of the complex.

SM Prime replaced the long-time concessionaire, the Martel family, as the city government seeks to unlock greater value from this prime area.

—Doris Dumlao-Abadilla

Jollibee’s ‘steady force’

Jollibee Foods Corp.’s longtime chief financial officer (CFO) Ysmael Baysa is retiring after a stunning career that helped transform the Filipino fast food group into a global name.

Baysa, described as the “steady force” behind the company’s expansion over the past 19 years, steps down on April 30 this year.

During his tenure, Jollibee grew from under 1,000 stores in 2003 to nearly 6,000 outlets across 18 brands.

While its food has brought joy to countless diners, Baysa imparted similar satisfaction to shareholders and investors over the years, with Jollibee’s market value up 15 times from P17 billion in 2003 to P253 billion today.

Taking over as new CFO is Richard Shin, the previous group finance chief and executive committee member of private equity firm Grobest Group Holdings Limited based in Taiwan and Hong Kong.

Shin also held Asia-Pacific CFO positions in William Grant & Sons Singapore.

Ernesto Tanmantiong, Jollibee CEO, welcomed the entry of Shin into the group.

“As we continue our accelerated expansion, we are confident that Richard’s global experience and proven track record will help the Jollibee Group achieve its vision of becoming one of the top five restaurant companies in the world,” he said.

—Miguel R. Camus

New cloud kitchen

Regional cloud or ghost kitchen operator Just Kitchen Holdings Corp. is entering the country’s delivery-only food service space by setting up shops in two locations.

JustKitchen inked a joint venture with TDG Ventures Inc. (TVI) in the Philippines to set up the business using the platform of GrabExpress Inc.—GrabKitchen for food production and GrabFood for delivery services.

The first location will be in Glorietta 2 in Ayala Mall, which will open on May 14.

JustKitchen said it was currently selecting the food menus from its portfolio of about 30 proprietary and partner brands. It is also working to secure the virtual branding rights to local hero brands in the Philippines.

“With our home base in Taiwan, established operations in Hong Kong, recent entry into Singapore and the addition of this large market to our customer base, we continue to execute on our international growth plan to bring JustKitchen’s unique operating model, portfolio of food brands and JKOS (a proprietary software for food ordering) technology solution to the Asia-Pacific region,” said Jason Chen, co-founder and CEO of JustKitchen.

JustKitchen uses a hub-and-spoke operating model, which features advanced food preparation taking place at larger hub kitchens and final meal preparation taking place at smaller spoke kitchens located in areas with higher population densities.

The company combines this operating model with online and mobile application-based food ordering fulfilled by third-party delivery companies, to minimize capital investments and operating expenses and reach more customers in underserved markets.

—Doris Dumlao-Abadilla INQ

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