The Gotianun family of Filinvest Land Inc. (FLI) would take annual treks to California in the 90s and the vast residential and commercial real estate landscape in Silicon Valley made them dream of a world-class office complex to serve as the choice address for technology companies back home.
Today, this dream lives on in Northgate Cyberzone in Filinvest City, Alabang—one of the first Philippine Economic Zone Authority (Peza) accredited IT Parks in the Philippines. FLI subsidiary Cyberzone Properties Inc. (CPI) manages the 18.7-hectare property and is the biggest provider of office spaces in South Metro Manila.
“Northgate was patterned after the sprawling campus offices of many start-ups and global technology firms. From my trips, I saw the large floor plate and side core office buildings which we introduced to the Philippines and has since become the industry standard,” said FLI President Josephine Gotianun-Yap. North Cyberzone is now a thriving community of business-process outsourcing (BPO) companies and technology providers.
Thanks to the family’s foresight, FLI made a deliberate strategy to focus on the office segment of the property market. “We are one of the pioneers in this segment, and we grew with the BPO industry since its infancy. It’s an industry that has brought employment to over a million Filipinos and a key driver to our country’s GDP,” said Gotianun-Yap.
Pioneer in providing homes to BPOs
One of the first built-to-suit (BTS) commercial properties in the Philippines was completed for a BPO of a multinational bank with 18,000 sq m of space, the largest BTS at the time.
The strategy has so far served FLI well. Amid the Covid-19 global pandemic, CPI’s revenues still climbed 8 percent to P3.12 billion in 2020 versus the previous year, thanks to the resilience of the country’s IT-BPO sector. In the last decade, revenues from this market segment have steadily given CPI a steady cashflow, with a compounded annual growth rate of 20 percent.
Sharing the dream
To share the success of the Gotianuns’ Silicon Valley dream and unlock the value of the property for potential investors, FLI selected 16 office buildings clustered in Northgate Cyberzone, and one office tower in Cebu Cyberzone located in the gateway to Cebu IT Park, Lahug, Cebu City, to be put into a real-estate investment trust (REIT) portfolio.
Subject to regulatory approval, CPI will be renamed into Filinvest REIT Corp., according to the Registration Statement CPI filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
Based on the registration statement filed by CPI, of the occupied gross leasable area, 88.4 percent is occupied by prime multinational BPO companies with 8.8 percent occupied by traditional and retail tenants while POGO tenants account for only 2.8 percent, as of March 31, 2021.
The portfolio also includes LEED Gold-certified buildings awarded by the US Green Building Council which FLI believes is among the sustainability features sought after by multinational BPOs today. The cooling system of Filinvest REIT Corp.’s buildings in Northgate Cyberzone was totally replaced five years ago and turned into the country’s largest district cooling system that reduces carbon emissions and energy consumption—a result of Filinvest’s partnership with Engie, a world leader in developing sustainable technology solutions.
For more information on CPI and its IPO, please visit http://www.cyberzoneproperties.com for a copy of the preliminary REIT Plan.
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