Filinvest Land to buy out foreign partner

MANILA, Philippines - Filinvest Land Inc. (FLI), the real estate development unit of the Gotianun family, is planning to acquire full ownership of Cyberzone Properties Inc. (CPI) and Filinvest Africa Israel Properties Inc. (FAPI) after buying out its partner Africa Israel Properties (Phils.), a foreign investment firm.

In a disclosure to the Philippine Stock Exchange, FLI said it was acquiring a 40-percent stake each in CPI and FAPI for P780 million and P383.2 million, respectively.

FLI currently owns 60 percent of CPI and FAPI.

The sale is subject to the final agreement of the terms and conditions by the parties and conditioned, among others, on the sellers’ delivery to FLI of certain required documents for closing.

FLI said the acquisition price was computed at company’s book value while the CPI share price was computed at a premium of 8.79 percent over the company’s book value as of Sept. 30 this year.

“The acquisition of Africa-Israel’s interests will enable FLI to consolidate its share in the strong and stable recurring revenue streams from the two companies as well as provide incremental development potential to FLI’s existing revenue streams,” FLI said.

On the other hand, the sale by Africa-Israel of its interests in the two companies is part of the group’s global portfolio rebalancing and consolidation activity.

The Africa-Israel Group invests internationally in equities, fixed income, foreign exchange, commodities, alternative investments, real estate and private equity.

Recently, FLI raised P5 billion from the issuance of P5 billion worth of three-year and five-year fixed-rate bonds. The bonds were three times oversubscribed and will be listed on the fixed-income exchange or the Philippine Dealing Exchange Corp.

FLI has set aside P2.3 billion out of the expected total proceeds from the offering for the construction of various medium-rise buildings (MRBs) in Metro Manila, Cebu and Davao and a high-rise building in Makati. Another P2 billion will go to the development of various mass housing projects. 

The remaining P700 million will be used to expand its landbank - P270 million for the South Roads project in Cebu, P124 million for a property in Ortigas, P143 million for a property in Cebu, and P163 million for a property in Sta. Mesa, Manila. These properties will be developed into MRBs.