FLI plans P7-B bond offer

MANILA, Philippines - Filinvest Land Inc., the property developer of the Gotianun family, plans to offer up to P7 billion worth of long-term retail bonds.

Sources said FLI has already submitted to the Securities and Exchange Commission its registration statement covering the sale of P5 billion worth of unsecured fixed rate peso bonds.  In case of strong demand, the company plans to sell an additional P2 billion worth of bonds.

BPI Capital Corp., BDO Capital & Investment Corp. and First Metro Investment Corp. are the joint issue managers and joint lead underwriters.

The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corp. Ltd. will also serve as joint lead underwriter for the offering.

The  planned bond offering has been assigned the highest rating of PRS Aaa by local credit watcher Philippine Rating Services Corp.

Obligations rated PRS Aaa are deemed “of the highest quality with minimal credit risk” and the obligor’s capacity to meet its financial commitment on the obligations is considered “extremely strong.”

Net proceeds from the offering will be used to partially fund projects that are targeted to be undertaken by the company in the fourth quarter of 2013 and in 2014.

This year, FLI has set a P20 billion capital expenditure program, higher than the P15 billion earmarked in 2012.

FLI remains focused  on its core residential development business which now includes mid-rise buildings, high-rise condominium projects, residential farm estates, entrepreneurial communities and leisure estates.

 The company is also expanding its retail and BPO office building portfolio to generate recurring revenues.

Among its new projects include affordable housing developments  in Laguna and Rizal, four middle income subdivisions, five MRB projects in Cebu, Davao and Pasig, one high-rise building in Makati and a commercial establishment in Rizal.

The expansion of Festival Supermall at Filinvest City has also commenced, adding over 57,000 square meters of gross leasable area.

It has also started the construction of its first BPO building at the 1.2 hectare joint venture project with the Provincial Government of Cebu.  The first building will have a GLA of over 19,000 square meters.  When completed, the project which will be called Filinvest Cebu Cyberzone, is projected to have four buildings with a GLA of over 100,000 square meters.

As of June 30, FLI had a land bank of around 2,272 hectares including 379.2 hectares of land under joint venture agreements.