Property developer Robinsons Land Corp., the country’s second largest shopping mall operator, is studying the possibility of conducting a real estate investment trust offering for its malls and logistics businesses.
“At the strategic corporate level, we will closely monitor REIT opportunities for our malls and logistics businesses,” RLC president and chief executive Frederick Go said during the company’s annual stockholders meeting.
RLC has an REIT firm for its office business under RL Commercial REIT Inc. RCR is now one of the largest REIT companies in the country with a market capitalization of P62.22 billion and with the widest geographical reach. It has 16 assets spread across 10 key cities all over the country.
RLC was operating 53 malls with total gross leasable area of 1.6 million square meters as of end-March 2023. Eight of these malls are located in Metro Manila and 45 in other key cities across the country.
RLC plans to open two new shopping malls–the Opus Mall in Pasig City and Robinsons Mall Pagadian between 2023 and 2024. These new malls will increase the company’s gross leasable area to 1.689 sq. m.
RLC’s malls generated rental revenues of P8.95 billion in 2022, up 74 percent year-on-year.
Go said the group’s mall business already exceeded pre pandemic levels.
Meanwhile, RLC’s logistics and industrial business under RLX Logistics and Facilities had eight industrial facilities with gross leasable space of 199,000 sq. m. as of end March 2023.
It has presence in the National Capital Region, north and south of Metro Manila. The group is working towards becoming the fastest growing logistics facility provider with additional warehouses in the pipeline.
RLX generated revenues of P555 million in 2022, a 57-percent increase from P354 million in 2021.
An REIT is a new asset class that provides investors with dividend-based income, inflation protection and portfolio diversification. REIT firms are required to pay 90 percent or more of their taxable profits to shareholders in the form of dividends.