DoubleDragon targeting to secure P10B from bond sale
MANILA, Philippines — DoubleDragon Corp., the property venture of tycoons Edgar “Injap” Sia II and Tony Tan Caktiong, is issuing up to P10 billion in retail bonds ahead of the Nasdaq listing of its global condotel chain.
In a stock exchange filing on Monday, DoubleDragon said its board of directors had approved the bond issuance, which obtained a PRS Aaa rating from the Philippine Rating Services Corp.
A PRS Aaa grade is the highest on the rating scale, indicating that the company awarded it has a strong capacity to meet financial commitments.
This comes ahead of Singapore-based subsidiary Hotel101 Global Pte. Ltd.’s listing on the Nasdaq Stock Exchange. It is expected to become the first Filipino-owned company to be traded on the tech-heavy American bourse within the second half of the year.
The upcoming listing is also seen to help strengthen the balance sheet of DoubleDragon, which is targeting to breach the P100-billion total equity mark this year.
By the end of 2023, the real estate firm’s total equity reached P94.57 billion, up by 15.88 percent.
DoubleDragon’s international and local projects—community malls, office buildings, hotels, and warehouse complexes—currently span 1.3 million square meters.
For its part, Hotel101 aims to have one million hotel rooms across more than 100 countries.
Dollar generator
In March, the company broke ground for its second international branch in Madrid, which has 680 rooms. Meanwhile, the 482-room Hotel101-Niseko in Japan is currently under construction.
“The export of Hotel101 is expected to eventually become one of the major US dollar inflow generators to the Philippine economy,” DoubleDragon earlier said in a statement.
As for its mall business, DoubleDragon recently announced it was set to open its 50th CityMall branch in Antique province within the second half of the year.
CityMall is DoubleDragon’s community mall brand that has branches in key cities across other provinces, including Zamboanga del Norte and Sultan Kudarat.
The property developer likewise launched a new venture in April, DragonFi 2.0, a mobile “super app” meant to spur digital investments in the country.
The app functions as a type of one-stop shop that allows investors to manage Philippine stocks and global funds in a single platform. INQ
