Ovialand plans P1.5-B initial public offering by June

Mass housing developer Ovialand Inc. plans to raise P1.5 billion from a stock market debut by midyear, aiming to play a greater role in filling the country’s massive housing backlog.

Ovialand, a partnership between the Olivares family and mass housing veteran Januario Jesus Atencio, plans to offer to the public mostly primary shares, bringing its public ownership to 30 percent, company president Pammy Olivares-Vital said in a press briefing on Thursday night.

The company has mandated China Bank Capital Corp. to arrange this initial public offering, she said. The target is to submit a registration statement to the Securities and Exchange Commission by the end of this month and list on the Philippine Stock Exchange by June.

Ovialand focuses on housing developments priced between P2 to P4 million, targeting consumers with monthly household income of about P50,000 to P100,000, which Vital said had proven to be resilient during the prolonged COVID-19 pandemic.

“These are bank tellers, [those] working in managerial, supervisorial (jobs), accountants, professionals in that level. During the pandemic, they worked for established companies that were able to sustain their employment,” Vital said. “So this is a unique market that we serve. Even though we are in the mass housing segment, it’s a bit higher than the socialized and the low-cost segment,” she said.

Quality residences

Ovialand pitches to the property market what it calls “premier homes”—defined as “quality residences” made of solid concrete, fully finished with quality materials made by skilled workers and quality-assured” at affordable price points.

Currently, Ovialand has capacity to build 900 homes per year, which it wants to increase to 3,000 units per year by 2025 and further to 6,000 units per year by 2030.

Because of fast building turnaround time and prompt assistance to secure housing loans from Pag-IBIG, Vital said homebuyers could move in within six to nine months from reserving their chosen units.

Moving forward, Ovialand aspires to become a market leader one region at a time.

Strategic expansion

“Right now, we are centralized in Southern Luzon and we have several projects ongoing there. So our goal is to move into new territory starting next year, establish a base there and develop several projects at the same time so that we are able to serve strategically and manage very efficiently,” she said.

Ovialand has four ongoing developments located in San Pablo, Laguna, and Candelaria, Quezon, with a combined inventory of around 3,200 house-and-lot units, with packages ranging between P1.8 million and 3.2 million.

Although Ovialand is a relatively newer company, the Olivares family has been in the socialized and low-cost housing development since 1986 and since then delivered over 30,000 housing units.

Ovialand was established in 2014 to “cater to the needs of a new generation of Filipino homebuyers—aspirational, discerning and hardworking,” Vital said. —Doris Dumlao-Abadilla