PNOC subsidiary to sell 123-ha Cavite property

PNOC Development Management Corp. (PDMC), the real estate development arm of the state-owned Philippine National Oil Co. (PNOC), will auction off a 123-hectare property worth at least P1.3 billion in Rosario, Cavite as part of the company’s privatization plan.

PNOC president Eduardo Mañalac told reporters that they are actually looking at various options for the privatization of PDMC.

"We are strongly considering straight asset sale," the PNOC official said, adding that they have earlier considered a possible joint venture with another real estate company. "But we believed that a better approach is to sell the assets."

Based on an earlier privatization blueprint, PNOC is looking at selling 10 percent of its 98-percent stake in PDMC to the public, 53 percent to a strategic investor; and holding on to the remaining stake.

Mañalac, however, did not clarify if PDMC will be dissolved or not after the asset sale.

For the past months, PNOC has been consolidating some of its subsidiaries’ functions. It has recently put the coal business management to PNOC-Exploration Corp. PNOC also tasked its PNOC-Energy Development Corp. (PNOC-EDC) subsidiary to take charge of the renewable energy development for the group.

PDMC, formerly known as Filoil Development and Management Corp., is one of the profitable subsidiaries of PNOC. The real estate development unit had also engaged in socialized housing projects for the government.

In line with former President Estrada’s program on poverty alleviation, socialized housing and employment generation, the company was mandated to pursue the development of its 50-hectare special economic zone or FILSEZ.

FILSEZ will be designed into industrial sites for locators and investors; and will also be the hub for future new and renewable energy infrastructure projects. It will likewise be environmentally friendly and will showcase energy conservation techniques and the most advanced non-conventional energy technologies in the country.