Robinsons Land raises P8.5B from REIT selldown

MANILA, Philippines — Gokongwei-led Robinsons Land Corp. has sold P8.5 billion worth of its shares in RL Commercial REIT Inc. (RCR), raising the latter’s public ownership level and allowing the property developer to infuse assets into its real estate investment trust (REIT) arm.

In a stock exchange filing on Friday, Robinsons Land said it had sold 1.73 billion of its shares in RCR for P4.92 each via an overnight block placement.

Overnight trading allows investors to consider significant news and changes that happen outside normal trading hours before transacting.

This raises RCR’s public float to 49.95 percent from 33.86 percent.

READ: Investing in real estate investment trusts (REITs)

Under the Securities and Exchange Commission’s guidelines, REITs have a higher minimum public ownership requirement of 33.33 percent compared with 20 percent for companies debuting on the local bourse. This encourages and gives investors an option to directly invest in projects that are already finished and earning money.

Public float up

According to Robinsons Land, the sale will allow it to infuse up to P25 billion worth of assets—offices, malls, hotels and warehouses—into the commercial REIT landlord, increasing RCR’s gross leasable area by around 60 percent within the year.

“Being the majority shareholder of RCR, [Robinsons Land] shall continuously fuel the growth of RCR by infusing yield-accretive and high-quality assets that will complement the existing predominantly office asset portfolio of RCR in order to maximize both [Robinsons Land] and RCR’s shareholder value,” the developer said in its disclosure.

Ayala-led BPI Capital Corp. was tapped as the sole placement agent and bookrunner for the transaction.

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The investment portfolio of the real estate arm of conglomerate JG Summit Holdings Inc. includes 1.6 million square meters (sq m) of leasable mall spaces, 270,000 sq m of leasable office spaces and 227,000 sq m of leasable logistics facilities. It also has 26 hotels with 4,243 units.

RCR, meanwhile, has 16 premium assets in 10 cities, totaling 480,000 sq m of gross leasable space.

The earnings of Robinsons Land in 2023 rose by 24 percent to P12.06 billion on the success of its malls, hotels and joint ventures. —Meg J. Adonis