Investments galore

We had a chance to interview for our TV show Business & Leisure, the youthful Alfonso Reyno III, chief operating officer and executive vice president of Manila Jockey Club, Inc. (MJCI) a few days back and I’d like to share with you some of the business insights I gathered from the on-cam chat. To begin with he was very relaxed and confident about the directions that the MJCI is taking now, but what blew me away was the frenetic pace they are keeping to, not to mention the hundreds of millions the revitalized company has, just waiting just to get tapped.

The San Lazaro Hippodrome was easily the one big geographic footprint that defined Manila in the forties and fifties. I was still the toddler then (in the fifties, not in the forties!), but my macho uncles and my Dad spoke of the race track with much reverence and awe because it was the center of glamour and sophistication, when ladies dressed up to watch the races and their husbands and fathers drew heavy bets on the horses. The old gentlemen wore elegant suits, all white from top to bottom. To own a racing stall held a status symbol, and to own one with a racing horse to boot spelled wealth and stature.

The Manila Jockey Club was the oldest race track in Southeast Asia, established in 1867, so it is even older than San Miguel Corporation, as pointed out by the company COO. His father, Alfonso Reyno Jr. is the company’s chief executive officer. It started out not as a business club but rather as a social and recreational club before it metamorphosed into a business-oriented one through horse racing. Actually, it never got incorporated until the 1950s. It eventually became listed in the Stock Exchange as MJC.

Owners and breeders of racing horses that had good foreign bloodlines were few and acknowledged as elitist, objects of envy by Manila Society’s finest. Back then, it was not considered pedestrian to bet at the race track, but in the decades that followed, this soon passed altogether and the crowd at the hippodrome lost its stature, the glamour lost forever. My late brother-in-law Tony, from the renowned San Diego fishing clan even owned a stall there which he kept until his death. The family recently divested because the younger ones have no inkling of what to do with it and have no burdens of sentimentality about losing it.

In 1995, the Manila Jockey Club was revitalized with the entry of new investors. The management is still optimistic about the future of horse racing in the Philippines, so they acquired a 77-hectare property in Carmona, Cavite and moved the race track there. Now known as the San Lazaro Leisure & Business Club, it is the new home for horse racing in the country that boasts of world standard facilities, comparable to the best race tracks in the region, the younger Reyno says. Utilizing the latest technologies that guarantees a wider betting base and thus guarantees bigger revenue generation, the San Lazaro Leisure & Business Club’s PAGCOR VIP Club is touted as a big tourism attraction. 

In this wide spacious Park, they will also build a hotel-resort in Carmona, a more laid-back type of development to complement their gaming and racing operations. This hotel-resort is reportedly going to cost P500 million to build.

They have also entered into a joint venture with Century Properties to develop the Canyon Ranch, a first rate residential community in Carmona.

And, since they’re already into resort development, they are also negotiating for the acquisition of a beach property in nearby Mindoro, the Mamburao Beach Resort which they hope to develop into a world class tourist destination. Work on this project should start by late 2011 or early 2012. 

See what I mean by a frenetic pace?

Because they have moved the race track to Carmona, they now have a big idle property in Manila that is all of 16 hectares of prime property. They have partnered with Ayala Land to build the Celadon Residences, 200 town houses that by now are almost sold out.

They also went into a joint venture with Avida Properties, another Ayala concern to build five towers which will hold more than 2,000 residential units, bringing the total housing units they are building here to over 3,000 units.

To complete the community, they completed another area within the 16 hectares that is now called the MJC Ayala Land Commercial Center designed especially for BPOs. The first building, Vertex 1 is now occupied by Convergy’s, the biggest and most established call center in the Philippines, employing thousands and thousands of Filipinos. It occupies all six floors of Vertex I.

And what is a community without a mall in the midst of it? MJCI has sold four hectares of this huge property to the SM Group which of course will build another humongous mall in the area to serve as the commercial focal point of the development.

And last but not least, they are seriously considering another hotel development project in Manila to sit in 1.6 hectares of the San Lazaro Tourism & Business Park. This is already a PEZA-registered tourism zone by virtue of a presidential proclamation. Work on this hotel should start by February or March of 2011. MJCI has earmarked no less than P1 Billion for the hotel development.

The breakneck pace is simply dizzying. There seems to be no bottom in sight for the boundless energy and the big bucks needed to finish these projects. MJCI has partnered with the biggest names in property development including Ayala Land, SM, and Century Properties, as well as the biggest cash cow of the government, PAGCOR. It is indeed great news for our housing backlogs as well as the country’s tourism efforts which right now need a big shot in the arm. Let’s keep our fingers crossed for more and bigger investments of this sort in the very near future.

Shop till you drop

Before you miss it entirely, don’t fail to check out the big big sale this weekend. The three- day sale started yesterday, Friday, Sept. 17 at the SM Mall of Asia. From yesterday to today, Sept. 18, sale is up to midnight, so expect some frenetic shopping at the MOA.

I have inside info from friends at MOA who say this is indeed a big big sale. Well, with over 800 stores to choose from for both local and imported brands, I guess they’re not exaggerating.

And then, tomorrow, Sunday which is their last day of sale, MOA is open till 11 p.m., so if you do not want to brave the early evening traffic, come later for more leisurely shopping, unless everyone else has the same idea!

Mabuhay!!! Be proud to be a Filipino.

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