Ayalas, Gokongweis, 2 others to bid for FTI

MANILA, Philippines - Four property developers including Ayala Land Inc. and the Gokongweis’ Robinsons Land Corp. are vying for the government’s Food Terminals Inc. (FTI) property in Taguig, Finance Undersecretary for Privatization Crisanta Legaspi said.

“So far, four have expressed intentions to bid. They have indicated interest and they include big-ticket groups such as Ayala and Robinsons,” Legaspi said.

The government is scheduled to bid out the FTI property on Oct. 8 with a floor price of P13 billion.

The group with the highest bid gets the property and would have to pay for it in lump sum, Legaspi said. Proceeds from the sale would form part of the government’s P30-billion privatization revenue target for 2009.

Earlier, Ayala Land said it is already evaluating the agri-industrial property. Ayala Land develops and operates malls, condominiums and mixed-used properties nationwide.

Robinsons Land, the real estate arm of the Gokongwei group, is involved in the development and operation of shopping malls and hotels. It also has several mixed-use properties, office buildings, residential condominiums, as well as land and residential housing developments, including socialized housing projects located in key cities and other urban areas nationwide.

FTI is a 120-hectare agro-industrial commercial estate in Taguig. It was originally built to be a food processing and consolidation center for agricultural products. It houses more than 300 small-to-medium scale companies engaged in different industries such as manufacturing, garments and electronics.

Of the 120-hectare property, the government will only bid out 103 hectares because the remaining 17 hectares are owned by the National Food Authority (NFA).

The Government Service Insurance System (GSIS), the state-owned pension fund for government employees, was not among the four groups that expressed interest in bidding for FTI, Legaspi said.

Last January, GSIS president Winston Garcia said he would offer P7 billion for the property.

Garcia said he wanted to build an interchange that would connect FTI to C-5 and to the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA). C-5 stretches from Taguig City to Quezon City in Metro Manila. It is also connected to EDSA, Metro Manila’s main thoroughfare. The interchange, he earlier said, would attract investors to the property.