Robinsons Land picks banks for Philippines US$500m Reit IPO

Manila

ROBINSONS Land, the Philippine developer led by tycoon Lance Gokongwei, picked arrangers for the initial public offering (IPO) of a property trust that could raise as much as US$500 million, said people with knowledge of the matter.

The firm chose UBS Group and Bank of the Philippine Islands (BPI) for the planned listing, which could take place in Manila as soon as the first half of 2021, said the sources.

The real estate investment trust (Reit) will be backed by an office portfolio with an estimated valuation of as much as US$2 billion, one of the sources said, asking not to be identified discussing private information.

Robinsons Land could add additional banks to the lineup later, another source said.

Deliberations are at an early stage, and details of the offering could change, the sources added.

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Representatives for Robinsons and UBS declined to comment. A representative for BPI did not reply to requests for comment.

Robinsons Land said last month it was planning a Reit backed by 15 office buildings with more than 400,000 square metres (sq m) of leasable area.

It joins other Philippine firms including DoubleDragon Properties and Vista Land & Lifescapes Inc that are preparing to list property trusts on the local bourse next year.

The potential offerings would also give a boost to the country's IPO market, which hosted only three deals this year raising a total of US$802 million, showed data compiled by Bloomberg.

Robinsons Land is the real estate arm of JG Summit Holdings, a Philippine conglomerate with interests from food and airlines to banks and petrochemicals, said its website.

The company's office division had 613,000 sq m of net leasable space in 25 office buildings at the end of September, showed its latest earnings presentation.

Robinsons Land's office buildings division reported revenue of 4.34 billion pesos (S$120 million) in the first nine months of the year, up 20 per cent from the same period in 2019. BLOOMBERG