Cebu Landmasters Inc., a leading housing builder in Visayas and Mindanao, plans to spend P50 billion to develop newly-acquired properties.
Cebu Landmasters said in a disclosure to the stock exchange it expanded its landbank in key cities in the region by 36 percent to 1.245 million square meters from the 2018 figure.
The new land acquisitions, which spanned strategic properties in seven key Visayas-Mindanao cities and financed from a combination of internally generated funds and bank financing, will ensure the company’s rapid and sustained growth in the next few years.
Cebu Landmasters said most of the lots were secured for the development of a mixed-use project in Cebu City business district, an office in the same area, a mixed-use development in Mactan anchored by a hotel, and more residential developments in the cities of Davao, Bacolod, Iloilo, Ormoc, Dumaguete and Bohol.
“Our landbanking activities are driven by the opportunities presented by each local market. We only purchase a property if we are certain we have an appropriate project for the site to meet a community’s needs and if we can develop that project in the next two to three years,” said Cebu Landmasters chairman and chief executive Jose Soberano III.
Soberano said most of the land it acquired in 2019 were fully owned by the company, while 21 percent were joint ventures that allowed Cebu Landmasters to gain access to high-value sites without requiring intensive capital outlay.
Cebu Landmasters said it was teaming up with prominent Iloilo businessman Alfonso Tan, chairman of International Builders Corp., on a high-rise multi-tower condominium with retail spaces on a prime corner lot in Iloilo City’s downtown area.
It is also tying up with fellow Cebuano player AboitizLand to develop a mid-market, mixed-use, multi-tower condominium project in Mandaue City.
Cebu Landmasters purchased an adjacent lot of over 48,000 sq. m. to expand its Casa Mira South development in the south of Cebu, bringing the total number of house and lot units to over 3,000.
Future developments in Cebu City include a mixed-use community with hotel, office and retail in a prime Cebu Business Park lot adjacent to the Ayala Mall.
