DoubleDragon sharply higher on debut

Shares of DoubleDragon Properties Corp. sizzled on the company’s stock trading debut on Monday as investors bet on the favorable long-term prospects of the property firm founded by fast-food magnates Edgar Sia II and Tony Tan Caktiong.

The property company, which listed on the local stock exchange under the ticker DD after raising P1.16 billion from the equities market, likewise raised the curtain for the country’s initial public offering (IPO) with a high bar this 2014.

From an IPO price of P2 per share, DoubleDragon’s share price surged by 50 percent—the maximum daily fluctuation to close at P3 per share. This gave the property firm a market capitalization of P4.46 billion.

Jose Mari Lacson, head of research at Campos Lanuza & Co., said there were three reasons for DD’s strong performance on its inaugural trading day.

“Investor appetite for pure mall developers and operators is strong given that relative scarcity in the PSE,” Lacson said, noting that only SM Prime Holdings and Starmalls Inc. were the only two pure mall operators listed on the local stock exchange before DoubleDragon’s debut.

“Investors recognize that the probability of success of the CityMalls is high given its three major shareholders can provide and encourage the necessary locators to achieve critical mass for tenants,” Lacson said, adding that valuations were “quite attractive.”

DoubleDragon aims to reach one million square meters of total leasable space portfolio by 2020, of which 70 percent is expected to come from the planned 100 CityMall community malls to be put up by a subsidiary where the SM group had recently come in as a strategic partner. Doris C. Dumlao