Robinsons Land Picks Banks for Philippines $500 Million REIT IPO

(Bloomberg) -- Robinsons Land Corp., the Philippine developer led by tycoon Lance Gokongwei, picked arrangers for the initial public offering of a property trust that could raise as much as $500 million, people with knowledge of the matter said.

The firm chose UBS Group AG and Bank of the Philippine Islands for the planned listing, which could take place in Manila as soon as the first half of 2021, according to the people. The real estate investment trust will be backed by an office portfolio with an estimated valuation of as much as $2 billion, one of the people said, asking not to be identified discussing private information.

Robinsons Land could add additional banks to the lineup later, another person said. Deliberations are at an early stage, and details of the offering could change, the people said.

Representatives for Robinsons and UBS declined to comment. A representative for BPI didn’t reply to calls and text messages seeking comment.

Robinsons Land said last month it was planning a REIT backed by 15 office buildings with more than 400,000 square meters (4.3 million square feet) of leasable area. It joins other Philippine firms including DoubleDragon Properties Corp. and Vista Land & Lifescapes Inc. that are preparing to list property trusts on the local bourse next year.

The potential offerings would also give a boost to the country’s IPO market, which hosted only three deals this year raising a total of $802 million, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Robinsons Land is the real estate arm of JG Summit Holdings Inc., a Philippine conglomerate with interests from food and airlines to banks and petrochemicals, according to its website.

The company’s office division had 613,000 square meters of net leaseable space in 25 office buildings at the end of September, according to its latest earnings presentation. Robinsons Land’s office buildings division reported revenue of 4.34 billion pesos ($90 million) in the first nine months of the year, up 20% from the same period in 2019.

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