AMAL BULLISH ON ITS 2019 GROWTH PROSPECTS

The mergers & acquisitions (M&A) market in the Philippines is an emerging industry that is set to make its mark in the coming years, said Asian Mergers & Acquisitions Links (AMAL).

Since its inception in 2015, AMAL has already closed more than a dozen deals, linking Japanese companies to local partners who are in need of additional capital to expand their businesses. It offered a win-win situation wherein both parties can capitalize on each partner’s strength.

“A lot of the more economically mature countries such as Japan are looking for investments or acquisition opportunities in the Asean, specifically in the Philippines. AMAL is leading the way as we have the expertise and the credibility to create a successful M&A deal,” said Hideki Tanifuji, the Japanese founder and chief executive officer of AMAL.

AMAL has been involved in companies engaged in real estate, IT, business process outsourcing, manufacturing, consumer goods, among others.

The year 2018 was a record breaking year for AMAL. One of its most successful endeavors was to bring to the country a leading Japanese real estate company, Kyushu Yaesu. AMAL found a suitable local partner Ecoverde Homes, for Kyushu Yaesu after due diligence and market research.

“In the initial groundwork and meetings with the investor, AMAL set a tone of transparency, giving importance to specific, well-articulated value creation in the partnership agreement. This paved the way for our company and Kyushu Yaesu to reach an agreement that was beneficial to both companies,” said Giovanni J. Olivares, president of Ecoverde Homes.

Today, the partnership is currently building residential houses for the mid- and low-cost market in Cagayan de Oro. After that, they will be looking in various provinces to build their next projects which will include townhouses and condominiums.

“AMAL envisions that this project will not only show a successful partnership but also will help enhance the quality and expose our local real estate industry to the best practices of foreign real estate companies,” Tanifuji said. “At the same time, we want to also show foreign companies that the Philippine real estate industry is not behind in terms of the designs and of the quality houses that our local developers can build.”

“We are still a young company but we are continuously growing in operations. In fact, we want to become the top M&A company in the Philippines and one of the leading in Asia. We are now the biggest in the industry in terms of manpower as we have 90 employees composed of the management team, HR, IT staff, accountants, marketing analysts, consultants, and foreign language speakers/ translators,” he said.

Envisioning a long-term growth for the business, AMAL is aiming to list in the local bourse by 2020. Aside from the publicly-listed M&A firms in Japan, AMAL will then be the only M&A firm to be listed in any Asian stock exchange.

Additionally, AMAL is targeting to be the number one in the Asean region and grow its workforce to 200 employees by 2020.