GSIS wants to buy Food Terminals Inc

Government Service Insurance System (GSIS), the state-owned pension fund for government employees, wants to acquire the government’s 100-hectare Food Terminals Inc. (FTI) property in Taguig, its top official said.

GSIS president and general manager Winston Garcia, however, said the agency is not willing to shell out P15 billion for the property because of certain issues surrounding the asset.

The National Government is eyeing to sell the sprawling FTI property early this year for at least P15 billion, which was the amount of its last valuation.

“The problem with them (the government) is that’s the price that they were asking ever since but they weren’t able to sell it. They say at least P15 billion but who’s going to buy it?” Garcia told reporters.

He said the problem with FTI is that it has existing leases that will expire only in five to seven years.

 “Nobody can afford to park their money — P15 or P10 billion — and not be able to develop it immediately. Another problem with FTI is the access road. The access of FTI is only a two-lane road and nobody is crazy enough to spend for infrastructure in order to put a wide access or interchange direct to C5,” Garcia said.

GSIS’ offer, he added, may be the best the government can get.

 “We can afford to wait for these leases to expire in five to seven years. We can afford in the meantime to put the wide access roads and in five to seven years develop it,” Garcia said.

FTI, an agro-industrial commercial estate in Taguig, was originally built to be a food processing and consolidation center for agricultural products. It houses more than 300 small-to-medium scale companies engaged in different industries such as manufacturing, garments and electronics.

The Privatization and Management Office believes the property will be attractive to commercial and residential land developers given its location and size. 

Garcia, for his part, said GSIS wants to develop the area as part of its investment strategy and possibly enter into joint ventures later on.

 “FTI appeals to us because the potential for return is there,” he said.

The DTI has set a target of P30 billion from privatization for 2008 or one third of the P90.6 billion generated last year.