Megaworld Corp. said it will inject some of its office and commercial assets inside Uptown Bonifacio into Mreit Inc. by 2023 to bulk up its real estate investment unit.
The company, however, did not identify the properties it will infuse into Mreit. To date, Uptown Bonifacio, the parcels of land owned by the group of businessman Andrew Tan within the Ayala’s Bonifacio Global City (BGC), has close to 331,300 square meters of completed office and commercial projects. Another 70,000 square meters of prime office spaces are set to be completed in three years, the company said.
“These prime office and commercial assets can be potentially injected into Mreit. With BGC having the highest office rental rates among major business districts in the country, these fresh assets can truly bulk up Mreit’s portfolio, increase its rental revenues, and of course, grow the distribution yields for our investors,” Mreit President and CEO Kevin Andrew L. Tan said.
In 2022, Tan said Megaworld will inject some 100,000 square meters of prime office assets from Eastwood City, McKinley Hill and Iloilo Business Park into Mreit.
Mreit’s initial portfolio for its initial public offering (IPO) consists of only 10 prime office buildings covering around 224,431 square meters in Megaworld’s developments in Eastwood City in Quezon City, McKinley Hill in Taguig and Iloilo Business Park.
Uptown Bonifacio’s office properties are home to some of the biggest names in the IT and BPO industries.
A new tower, Worldwide Plaza, will be the future headquarters of the Philippine Global Service Center of JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A., the leading global banking and financial services provider. The 25-storey, built-to-suit office tower has been touted as the largest single office leasing transaction in Philippine real estate industry in terms of total space leased to a single company and transaction value in 2018.
“Once all of the seven office towers in Uptown Bonifacio are completed, the township will have the biggest office portfolio among our 27 township developments. We look forward to having some of these assets become part of Mreit,” Tan said.
Mreit’s shares were listed on the Philippine Stock Exchange last Friday.
Its share price gained P0.60 to close at P16.70, up from its IPO price of P16.10. It climbed as much as P17.16 during the day, but succumbed to profit taking at the close of the trading session.