Robinsons Land raises P8.5B from REIT stake

ROBINSONS Land Corp. (RLC) on Friday said it had raised roughly P8.49 billion in fresh funds to bankroll ongoing projects and planned land acquisitions following an overnight block placement of shares in its real estate investment trust, RL Commercial REIT Corp. (RCR).

In a stock exchange filing, the Gokongwei-led property developer said the overnight block placement involved about 1.73 billion RCR shares at a price of P4.92 apiece, which raised the REIT’s public float to 49.95 percent.

“This placement enables RCR to acquire accretive assets from RLC’s diverse pipeline of investment properties,” the company said.

Lance Gokongwei, RLC chairman,

president and chief executive officer, attributed the oversubscribed book to the “strength of RLC’s brand” as well as to the continued trust and confidence of institutional investors.

“Being the majority shareholder of RCR, RLC shall continuously fuel the growth of RCR by infusing … assets that will complement the existing predominantly office asset portfolio of RCR in order to maximize both RLC and RCR’s shareholder value,” he added.

“We envision RCR to be the bellwether REIT in the Philippine real estate landscape.”

BPI Capital Corp. was tapped as the sole placement agent and bookrunner for the transaction.

RLC plans to infuse assets worth around P25 billion into RCR and expand the latter’s total gross leasable area by some 60 percent this year in a bid to maximize RCR’s revenue streams and ensure continuous growth.

RLC currently has an investment portfolio of 1.6 million square meters (sqm) of leasable mall area, 270,000 sqm of leasable office spaces, 4,243 room keys across 26 hotels and 227,000 sqm of leasable logistics facilities.

RCR owns 16 premium assets with a total gross leasable space of 480,000 sqm in 10 major cities.

“With the potential infusion of various asset classes in several key cities across the country, this maximizes RCR’s revenue streams to ensure its continuous growth,” RLC said.

RCR posted total revenues of P5.52 billion in 2023, excluding the effect of the change in fair market value of investment properties and has paid out total dividends amounting to 39.14 centavos per share.

RLC is part of the Gokongwei family-controlled conglomerate JG Summit Holdings.

On Friday, RLC shares ended down 3.95 percent at P16.04 each and RCR’s stock price also fell 3.47 percent to P5.01 amid a 1.2-percent decline in the benchmark Philippine Stock Exchange index.