Ayala Land to raise P30B from retail bonds, notes

AYALA LAND, Inc. will raise P30 billion by issuing a mix of retail bonds, corporate notes, bilateral term loans and short-dated notes.

In a regulatory filing, the listed company announced its board of directors on Monday authorized the raising of a maximum of P20 billion through retail bonds, corporate notes or bilateral term loans with maturities as long as 10 years.

Ayala Land intends to issue the retail bonds out of the P50billion shelf offering approved by the Securities and Exchange Commission in March 2016.

The property business of the Ayala Group tapped the fixed-income market four times in 2016, issuing corporate and homestarter bonds cumulatively worth P25 billion from the three-year debt program.

Aside from retail bonds, corporate notes and bilateral term loans, the board approved the issuance of debt notes maturing not more than 21 months to raise P10 billion and refinance the company’s short-term loans.

In a media briefing last week, Ayala Land revealed a capital expenditure program of about P88 billion for the year, higher than the P85.40 billion disbursed in 2016. It noted that P20 billion of the planned spending will be financed by debt.

The company intends to spend P40.7 billion on residences, P11.8 billion on malls; P10.6 billion on land; P9.2 billion on offices; P5.5 billion on estates; P4.4 billion on hotels and resorts; and P4.9 billion on others.

The residential business accounts for bulk of the capital layout, with the launch of P100 billion worth of products for sale. It targets to introduce 19,000 units or more than double the 7,300 offered last year in projects worth P61.5 billion.

This year, the company plans to complete seven shopping centers with a total gross leasable area of 224,000 sq.m. These include Ayala Malls The 30th, which opened in January in Pasig City; Ayala Malls Vertis North; Ayala Malls Feliz in Cainta, Rizal; and Ayala Malls One Bonifacio High Street in Taguig City.

Ayala Land also looks to launch a total of 185,000 sq. m. of gross leasable office space in Vertis North, Circuit Makati and The 30th in Pasig within the year.

In addition, the company will open its largest Seda Hotel in Quezon City and first resort-type accommodation under the homegrown brand in El Nido, Palawan. These follow the launch of Casa Kalaw in El Nido and Balay Kogon in Sicogon, Iloilo in 2016.

Ayala Land is looking to launch two more estate developments spanning 20 hectares in Davao and 35 hectares in Pasig City alongside.

Higher residential and office sales, along with the delivery of more leasable spaces, allowed Ayala Land to increase its consolidated revenues 16% to P124.6 billion and sustain a 19% surge in net income to P20.9 billion in 2016.

Shares in Ayala Land closed 15 centavos or 0.41% higher at P36.35 apiece on the Philippine Stock Exchange on Tuesday. —