Ayala Land Inc. said Tuesday it is infusing P15.46 billion worth of properties into real estate investment trust company AREIT Inc. under a property- for-share-swap transaction.
Ayala Land said in a disclosure to the stock change its executive committee approved the infusion of P15.46 billion worth of commercial properties into AREIT Inc. in exchange for 483.25 million shares in the company.
Under the transaction, AREIT will increase its authorized capital stock to P29.5 billion from P11.74 billion.
The property-for-share swap transaction and the increase in the capital stock are subject to the approval of regulatory bodies and AREIT shareholders during the annual meeting next month
AREIT said the transaction with Ayala Land would increase the group’s leasing portfolio from 344,000 square meters to 549,000 sq. m. and deposited property value from P37 billion to P52 billion.
AREIT is the first REIT company to be listed at the Philippine Stock Exchange. When it was listed, its property portfolio consisted only of three commercial buildings. These are Solaris One, a 24-story commercial building; Ayala North Exchange, a two-tower mixed-use development; and McKinley Exchange, a five-story mixed-use development.
It said that in a span of less than a year, it added three more properties in its portfolio, including the Teleperformance Cebu Building, the 75,000-sq.m. commercial development in Pasig and a 98,0000-sq.m. land at Laguna Technopark which is leased by Integrated Micro-Electronics Inc. for manufacturing business.
Meanwhile, Ayala Land said it reached 91-percent carbon neutrality in its commercial properties and was on track to achieve its target of 100 percent by next year.
This means that all of the greenhouse gases discharged by Ayala Land’s malls, offices, hotels and resorts because of its use of fossil fuels would be fully reduced and offset by the end of 2022 by switching to renewable energy and nurturing and protecting 586 hectares of land bank which it designated as carbon forests.
“We’re confident we will hit our target by the end of next year,” said Manny Blas, head of corporate services of Ayala Land Estate Group.
Ayala Land embarked on a program in 2017 to reduce its carbon footprint to zero in five years.