ALI eyes P7B from bond issue in April

MANILA, Philippines - Property powerhouse Ayala Land Inc. (ALI) plans to raise P7 billion from a debt sale not later than next month.

In an interview, ALI chief executive officer Jimmy Ysmael told The STAR that the company intends to issue P7 billion worth of bonds “not later than April.”

“We’re working on our bond issuance, about P7 billion. That’s the balance from last year,” he said.

The property arm of the Ayala conglomerate raised last year P8 billion from the initial tranche of its P15-billion bond issuance.

The P7-billion bond offering will kickoff ALI’s plan to borrow as much as P15 billion to support its aggressive expansion program this year which will entail a record investment of P100 billion.

ALI officials earlier said the company is looking to finance 10 to 15 percent of its planned P100-billion capital expenditures program for 2015 through “incremental borrowings.”

After the planned debt sale by April, Ysmael said the property giant is eyeing to raise P1 billion to P2 billion more through the offering of its Homestarter bonds.

ALI deferred last year the issuance of up to P5 billion worth of Homestarter bonds after already completing its fundraising activities for the year.

Homestarter bond is ALI’s interest-earning instrument that allow aspiring homeowners to save for downpayment.

“For the Homestarter, it might be on a later time, probably after the bond offering, we just have to time it,” Ysmael said.

“The rest will be bilateral debt to be obtained by subsidiaries and affiliates of Ayala Land,” he added, referring to ALI’s other fundraising activities to support this year’s capex.

With the positive momentum in the real estate sector last year, ALI’s net income grew 26 percent year-on-year to P14.8 billion.

The robust performance of its property development and commercial leasing operations, which increased 21 percent and 18 percent, respectively, powered the 18 percent-growth in ALI’s real estate revenues to P93 billion.