CONDO LENSES: SMDC and Megaworld

QUICKLY NOW, what real-estate company, among the many big and small developers here, runs away with the prize for scattering the cityscape with gigantic billboards featuring celebrities pushing for some condo projects?

Well, easily, that should be the publicly listed SM Development Corp., codenamed SMDC at the stock exchange, the residential developer of the SM group of taipan Henry “Tatang” Sy.

Handling SMDC for the group is, of course, the taipan’s namesake, Henry Jr., known as “Big Boy” in big business, who is vice chairman and CEO of SMDC.

Word has it that the children of Tatang have, more or less, divided among themselves the major business units of the group, particularly mall operations, banking and real estate.

Anyway, Big Boy explains those huge billboards as a valuable marketing tool for SMDC. For one, the company is a relative newcomer in the condo game. It needs all the visibility it can muster. It also wants to position itself at the low-priced segment of the market, its units fetching between P800,000 and P2 million, for studio-type condos of less than 30 square meters.

The units are affordable to those who reside in, say, Laguna or Bulacan, but who work in the metropolis. Big Boy says that, in effect, SMDC is betting on the preference of those people for much shorter commute to work.

And so the company uses beautiful hot celebrities in its outdoor advertising campaign, some TV personalities liked well by the target buyers of SMDC condos, none other than the “bakya” crowd, and I use the term with respect.

It is small wonder then that Big Boy claims that, in terms of number of units sold, his company last year actually beat another listed condo developer, which is the Megaworld group, controlled by taipan Andrew Tan.

Do we see a business rivalry in the making here?

* * *

FROM what I heard, SMDC is still acquiring properties in strategic locations (along C-5, for instance) for land banking. In all likelihood, the company is going to stick to its low-priced strategy.

It so happens that the government, through the BOI, gives away tax incentives for low-cost housing, and the future projects of SMDC apparently should still qualify. It already obtained tax breaks for a number of its existing projects.

Now companies like SMDC and Megaworld that must keep on pursuing projects, or else their bottom lines dwindle, cannot stop acquiring properties even for use way into the future. Landbanking, in their kind of business, is the only means of survival.

That is where SMDC and Megaworld perhaps differ—in their landbanking strategy. SMDC acquires properties piecemeal, one at a time, as long as they are in strategic locations, such as near the LRT stations.

In comparison, Megaworld has an appetite for huge undeveloped or underdeveloped property. Well, two of Megaworld’s biggest projects are in government properties that used to be military camps, and another one in another government property that used to be a public school.

One is in Fort Bonifacio (called the “McKinley Hill” project), and another in Villamor Air Base (a combination of commercial spaces, condos, hotels and casinos), and both are nearing completion.

Thus, Megaworld bought into the Fil-Estate group, which has cash flow problems but at the same time has a vast inventory of properties, albeit mostly outside the metropolis.

Thus, it is the same problem for condo developers like Megaworld and SMDC: They are running out of huge properties for development inside the metropolis. As Big Boy notes, most of the private property in the city are divided into small lots.

The next option surely is consolidation of those small lots, which happened in big cities like Tokyo and Hong Kong, in the process creating untold riches for the lot owners. Such is said to be the next trend in property development.

But of course, the government, looking through its myopic economic lenses, is doing its best to delay this stupid trend to create and disperse wealth by going into a land-selling frenzy.

Now nobody can readily say whether or not somebody wants to make a lot of money on the side, but the Aquino (Part II) administration wants to sell the military camps. What is next—Malacañang, hopefully?

For details on SM condos and properties, you may contact Reby Ramirez @ +63 916.4044.555 / +63 919.699.3572 / +63 922.941.4139 or e-mail: reby_ramirez@yahoo.com

For details on RA 9646 or RESA Law, please visit www.ra9646.com. RA9646.com is the central depository of all updates on the new law for the practice of real estate service in the Philippines. The Law has been passed and signed last June 29, 2009. Its implementing rules and regulations (IRR) has been published in July 2010 making the law fully operational as of August 08 2010.

source: Inquirer, Jan 23 2011 (Conrado Banal III)

Sy power firm gets $225M loan

MANILA, Philippines—Publicly listed UEM Development Philippines Inc. has secured a $225-million loan from Standard Chartered Bank as part of its effort to bulk up on financial muscle ahead of its foray into the infrastructure sector.

In a disclosure to the Philippine Stock Exchange, the Henry Sy Jr.-led holding firm said that its board of directors had approved the loan—equivalent to about P10 billion at the prevailing exchange rate—from the Singaporean unit of the British bank.

UEM earlier said it was raising as much as P30 billion for its infrastructure projects as well as to refinance debts of the Sy-controlled National Grid Corporation of the Philippines, which inherited some $3 billion in liabilities from the state-owned National Power Corp.

According to UEM, its board also approved the pledging to the creditor of all shares of all subsidiaries and affiliates that would be created from its acquisition of holding firms Pacifica21 Holdings Inc. and OneTaipan Holdings Inc., effectively making the loan an equity-backed transaction.

OneTaipan and Pacifica21 were the holding units of Henry Sy Jr. and Robert Coyiuto, respectively. The former owns a “30 percent plus one share” stake in NGCP while the latter owns “30 percent minus one share.” The balance of 40 percent is owned by State Grid of China.

As part of the transaction, UEM will then advance up to $225 million to Pacifica21 to help the latter refinance its debts, the company said.

Late last year, UEM announced that it would take control of the privatized electricity superhighway operated by NGCP.

UEM, which will be renamed Synergy Grid and Development Philippines Inc., has obtained prior shareholders’ approval for a share-swap scheme that will allow it to take over the two companies that control 60 percent of NGCP.

The plan is to issue 100 million common shares at P140 each in exchange for all the outstanding shares of OneTaipan Holdings and Pacifica21. The P14 billion worth of shares to be issued will be created out of the proposed increase in the authorized capital stock of the holding firm.

After completing the share swap, UEM will legally and beneficially own 100 percent of the outstanding shares of Pacifica21 and OneTaipan, paving the way for the backdoor listing of their interest in NGCP.

UEM is also amending its primary purpose to include the authority to engage in power, utilities, infrastructure and related businesses. A secondary purpose included construction.

“We’re also looking at infrastructure,” Sy said in an earlier interview, noting that this was in line with the public-private partnership projects being offered by the Aquino administration.

Sy, the eldest son and namesake of the country’s richest man, is undertaking the large-scale foray into infrastructure outside his family’s core interests in retailing, banking as well as shopping mall and property development under SM Investments Corp.

For details on RA 9646 or RESA Law, please visit www.ra9646.com. RA9646.com is the central depository of all updates on the new law for the practice of real estate service in the Philippines. The Law has been passed and signed last June 29, 2009. Its implementing rules and regulations (IRR) has been published in July 2010 making the law fully operational as of August 08 2010.

source: Inquirer, Jan 24 2011