Arthaland ups the green trend in P60-B portfolio

Boutique property developer Arthaland Corp. is building a property portfolio worth P60 billion, in line with its goal of scaling up its footprint by five times over a five-year period.

The plan would translate to various developments with gross floor area (GFA) of at least 500,000 square meters by 2024, but with new opportunities coming up, the company could even exceed that target, Arthaland president Jaime Gonzalez said in a press briefing on Wednesday.

Over time, Arthaland also plans to build its recurring income stream to account for 30 percent of revenues. To jump-start plans, it would carve out a portion of space in its projects to add to the leasing portfolio, Gonzalez said.

Arthaland differentiates itself from other property developers by building only green developments.

It is also the first nonbank institution to raise funds from an offering of green bonds, the first tranche of which is estimated at P3 billion. Subject to the Securities and Exchange Commission’s approval, the first tranche with a tenor of five years will be offered to retail investors by the end of this month.Arthaland hit P10 billion in reservation sales in 2019, its 10th year in the business, from three ongoing developments: Cebu Exchange, the single largest green office building in the Philippines with about 11 hectares of GFA; Savya Financial Center in Arca South, a premium green office tower with a fully integrated retail component; and Sevina Park, a low-density, mixed-use community in Biñan, Laguna.

By the third quarter of this year, Arthaland would be turning over units from the first phase of the Cebu Exchange to buyers, he said. “It will be the most prominent building in Cebu,” he said.

Savya’s two towers will create a total of 60,000 sqm of office space while Sevina is a mixed-use community with about 139,000 sqm of space in a master plan covering an 8.1-ha estate.Leonardo Arthur Po, Arthaland executive vice president and treasurer, said: “2019 was a very exciting year for us and we look forward to achieving more in 2020.”

This year, Arthaland plans to launch a new high-end residential condominium in Cebu City, a luxury residential condominium in Makati central business district and upscale apartments in Sevina Park. Combined with the inventory from Cebu Exchange, Savya and other segments of Sevina, these will comprise the company’s targeted development portfolio value of P60 billion by 2024.

“We are also on track as to managing the company conservatively,” Gonzalez said.

For every P1 of equity, the company has only 80 centavos in debt. Even if the company were to issue bonds, Gonzalez said debt would not exceed 1.5 times of equity.

On top of its current development pipeline, Arthaland has a land bank of 35 ha in Tagaytay and eight ha in Laurel, Batangas, which it can develop in the future.