PLDT to redevelop two Makati properties

PLDT Chairman Manny V. Pangilinan is keen on redeveloping the telco’s two Makati City-based offices, which are up for sale as the company continues to scout for an ideal location for its new headquarters.

The two properties are the Ramon Cojuangco Building along Makati Avenue, which is PLDT’s current head office, and the Makati General Office Building in Legaspi.

The tycoon noted he already had a number of people to spearhead the redevelopment plan for the two properties, which have a combined area of more than 8,000-square meters.

“I want it to develop as soon as possible,” he said.

Asked about the planned sale, Pangilinan replied they would redevelop the buildings and keep “a few floors.”

“Our condition is we keep x number of floors, we don’t know how many yet. It depends on the plans of the developers. I think the developers are looking at two towers, so we want to keep our naming rights, the PLDT, to one of the towers. We pay for the floors that we will keep,” he said.

PLDT informed the Philippine Stock Exchange in April that it planned to redevelop some of its properties to “maximize” their value “prior to the sale or disposal of portions or all of such redeveloped properties.”

The redevelopment and sale of these properties would also help fund the group’s vision to move to a new headquarters, which would cost around P10 billion.

At the time, Pangilinan said he was targeting to bring the PLDT headquarters to the southern part of Metro Manila, to two to three floors or a campus-like building to promote communication between employees.

“If you’re in a tower, the floors will simply attenuate your ability to communicate with each other. Whereas if it is flat, horizontal, similar to Facebook headquarters, it just forces conversation to happen, communication, collaboration, everything,” he said.

For the first nine months of the year, PLDT reported that net income increased 38 percent from a year ago to P21.9 billion driven by the double- digit revenue growth in its Home and Enterprise businesses.