REALTY: MANILA, Philippines – MREIT to acquire P9.1 billion Grade A buildings
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MANILA, Philippines — MREIT Inc., the real estate investment trust (REIT) of Andrew Tan-led Megaworld Corp., has approved the acquisition of P9.1 billion worth of four prime Grade A buildings located in PEZA-registered zones, increasing the company’s property value by 19 percent to P58.5 billion.
MREIT president and CEO Kevin Tan said the infusion of these prime assets would result in a 5.3 percent increase in expected dividends for calendar year 2022 from P0.95 per share to P1 per share.
“This transaction marks the beginning of our significant growth journey. We do not have any debt on our balance sheet at the moment, so we decided to lever up in order to take advantage of the current favorable interest rate environment and enhance our returns,” Tan said.
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The four prime office properties Two Techno Place, Three Techno Place, and One Global Center, which are located in Iloilo Business Park; as well as World Finance Plaza in McKinley Hill in Fort Bonifacio, Taguig, have a combined gross leasable area of 55,700 square meters, thus increasing MREIT’s portfolio GLA by 25 percent to around 280,000 sqm.
With an average occupancy rate of 99 percent, the infused assets will start contributing to MREIT’s revenues upon execution of the deed of absolute sale before the year ends.
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To fund the investment, MREIT’s board also approved the closing of a 10-year term loan facility amounting to P7.25 billion with a local bank.
To minimize volatility in interest costs, the loan will have a fixed rate.
Megaworld has so far completed over 1.4 million square meters of office spaces and an extensive pipeline of new office projects in place.
MREIT promises to be the country’s fastest-growing office REIT and will have the longest runway of growth, on the back of strong backing of its sponsor, Megaworld.
MREIT aims to have a total portfolio GLA of 500,000 sqm by 2024 and will grow this further to one million square meters before the end of the decade, which will make it one of the largest office REITs in Southeast Asia.
At present, MREIT’s portfolio is composed of 10 prime, grade-A office assets with GLA of 224,431 sqm, located in Megaworld’s Eastwood City, McKinley Hill, and IloIlo Business Park townships.
