GT Capital eyes creation of new property holding firm

MANILA, Philippines - GT Capital Holdings, the George Ty-owned conglomerate, is studying the possibility of creating a new property holding company for its Federal Land Inc. and Property Company of Friends Inc. (PCFI), and listing the new firm in the local bourse in the near future.

This is among the possibilities that GT Capital is looking into should it decide to increase its stake in PCFI, a subsidiary of Profriends Inc., GT Capital chief financial officer Francisco Suarez Jr. told The STAR.

In August, GT Capital acquired a 22.68 stake in PCFI for P7.24 billion, with an option to increase its direct shareholding to 51 percent within the next three years.

Profriends, which had been planning to do an initial public offering (IPO) last year, has temporarily shelved the plan as the buy-in of GT Capital likely met its funding requirements.

But Suarez said doing the IPO is still a possibility for Profriends or for a new property company that would serve as the holding company of GT Capital property subsidiary Federal Land and PCFI.

“Maybe in the medium term we might do the IPO. One option is we might create a property holding company which will own the two subsidiaries and we can list the property holding company,” Suarez said.

However, he stressed GT Capital still has to study such option.

“For now it’s not yet ready. We want to grow the respective businesses first,” he said.

As early as next year, GT Capital can already exercise its option to increase its stake in PCFI.

“Next year, we have the option to further increase our stake. There’s a second tranche payment of P6.26 billion. That would further grow our direct equity stake from 22 percent to 44 percent,” he said.

This would depend on whether or not PCFI would be able to deliver on its commitments.

“It depends on the company. They have to deliver transfer titles from the sellers’ name to the company’s name. And get the license to sell.  They also have to get DAR (Department of Agrarian Reform) clearances. That’s a prerequisite to get their license to sell. There are certain deliverables and milestones,” Suarez said.

Established in 1999, PCFI focuses on the low-cost and economic housing segments, and retail and office space leasing.

To date, it has built and sold over 36,000 affordable homes in the provinces of Cavite and Iloilo, with Lancaster New City as its flagship and largest project spanning the areas of Kawit, Imus, and General Trias in Cavite.

Another major PCFI project is the Bellefort Estates in the cities of Bacoor and Dasmarinas in Cavite.

Bellefort Estates is a township development with close proximity to the newly opened Muntinlupa-Cavite Expressway (MCX) that connects to the South Luzon Expressway.