Filinvest Land Inc. of the Gotianun Group said Thursday wholly-owned subsidiary Cyberzone Properties Inc. is transforming into a real estate investment trust company that will hold an initial public offering at the Philippine Stock Exchange.
FLI said in a disclosure to the stock exchange its board approved the transition of CPI into a REIT firm to unlock the value of the office leasing assets.
“We are looking forward to listing CPI as a REIT company because we believe that this will unlock the value of our office leasing business,” FLI president and chief executive Josephine Gotianun-Yap said.
“Filinvest has a growing portfolio of recurring-income projects and significant prime office properties in Alabang, Cebu and Clark to continue to grow this business. An REIT listing will enable acceleration of the growth of this business line,” she said.
CPI owns and operates the office buildings in Northgate Cyberzone on a 10-hectare property in Filinvest City in Alabang, Muntinlupa.
It also leases a parcel of land measuring 2,831 square meters on EDSA on which it built a 5-story BPO building with gross leasable area of 7,358 sq. m.
CPI’s office real revenues increased 16 percent the first nine months of 2020 to P2.46 billion from a year ago despite the pandemic.
FLI said the equity offering of its common shares in CPI would be compliant with the minimum public ownership requirement under the REIT law.
After Ayala Land Inc.’s successful REIT offering last year, several property firms expressed interest in conducting an REIT IPO, including DoubleDragon Properties Inc. which has a pending application filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission for DDMP REIT and Robinsons Land Corp.
FLI is one of the top providers of office space to the business process outsourcing industry in the Philippines and has 43 operating and under-construction office buildings covering more than 824,000 sq. m. of GLA.
The share price of FLI rose 0.89 percent Thursday to close at P1.13.
