Ayala Land outlines PH, Malaysia expansion in 2018

MANILA, Philippines – Ayala Land Incorporated, the property arm of the Ayala group, is targeting a slew of new local developments as well as a push into Malaysia as it chases its target of P40 billion in net income by 2020.

"We now have a portfolio of 24 estates and we plan to launch two estates this year, while we will also go flat out in the development of our recently launched estates Circuit Makati, Vermosa in Cavite, and Arca South," said Ayala Land president and chief executive officer Bernard Dy in a briefing following the firm's 2018 stockholders' meeting on Wednesday, April 18.

"We are also targeting opening 4 new malls this year and a retail center in the Ayala North Exchange in Makati that will add about 300,000 square meters (sqm) to our total shopping center gross leasable area (GLA)," he added.

Beyond these, Ayala Land also plans to open 3 new office buildings with a combined GLA of 77,000 sqm.

It will also make 620 additional hotel rooms available across 3 Seda hotels – Seda Bohol, Seda Lio in Palawan, and Seda Bonifacio Global City.

Ayala Land has set a capital expenditure budget of P111 billion for 2018, compared to the P91 billion in registered spending last year.

Malaysian push

Earlier this year, Ayala Land also upped its now majority stake in Malaysian developer MCT Berhad to around 66%.

"We now have a platform to plan our expansion into Malaysia. The board just recently approved the acquisition of a 9.25-acre [property] in Klang Valley, Malaysia that is basically our first land acquisition in Malaysia since we first invested in MCT Berhad," Dy said.

"We saw a lot of similarities in Klang Valley that we see in the Philippines. Klang Valley is home to around 8 million, has fairly good GDP (gross domestic product) growth of about 5%, and the population averages around the mid-20s in age," he added.

According to Dy, the plan for the Malaysia property is to develop mixed-use estates focused on homes targeted towards the middle income market.

The acquisition of the land, valued at around P2 billion, was done through MCT Berhad.

Dy added that the Ayala Land-controlled firm is evaluating other sites as well.

Ayala Land reported a full-year 2017 net income of P25.3 billion, up 21% from 2016, as total revenues grew 14% to P142.3 billion.

"We have been on track towards our target so far from 2014 to 2017, having grown our compounded annual growth rate by 21%. For us to be able to meet the P40-billion target, from 2018 to 2020, we now need to grow our income by 17% per year," Dy said.

"Given the continued economic growth in the country, we feel very positive that we will be able to continue to introduce new projects to the market that will bring us closer to achieving that target," he added.