DAVAO-BASED businessman Dennis A. Uy’s Udenna Corp. plans to list its leisure arm in the future, in order to finance the development of its $341-million integrated resort and casino in Cebu.
Udenna Director for Special Projects Raymundo Martin M. Escalona said the company is studying the possible listing of Lapu-Lapu Land Corp., which is undertaking the construction of Lapu-Lapu Leisure Mactan.
“We may (list Lapu-Lapu Land). It is also an option. We can go for listing eventually. It can be either both (an initial public offering or a backdoor listing), we have the option,” Mr. Escalona told reporters in Bonifacio Global City last week.
However, he noted an IPO would require the submission of a three-year record of the company’s financials.
“The thing with an IPO if you do it early you can’t do an IPO because you need a three-year track record. If you buy backdoor naman then that’s a possibility,” Mr. Escalona said.
Backdoor listing is another way for a private firm to list on the stock exchange, by acquiring a publicly traded company. The company would then have to conduct a follow-on offering after completing the backdoor listing.
The Lapu-Lapu Leisure Mactan project covers a 12.5 hectare beach-front property on Mactan Island. Mr. Escalona noted they are now awaiting the environmental compliance certificate (ECC) in order to proceed with the initial excavation for the project.
“We’re told the ECC will hopefully be out before Christmas because we complied, we submitted everything. We had public hearings for those that may be affected but apparently there was none,” Mr. Escalona said.
Asked if it has already tapped a management partner for the project, the company said it may engage the services of Enderun Colleges, which is also owned by Mr. Uy. Enderun is a private institution that offers hospitality management, business administration, and entrepreneurship degrees.
Meanwhile, Mr. Escalona said they have not yet decided on whether they will engage an operator for the casino component.
“There’s a lot of very talented people. So we’re weighing whether in fact we’ll get an operator or run it ourselves. The thing with running an operator like any operator, there’s a fee involved… So that depends. We have not made the final decision,” he said.
The Udenna executive said they may hire around 4,000 employees during the construction period, although a manpower shortage is expected given the number of developments currently being constructed in Cebu.
“The thing is there’s not too many (workers) anymore because there’s in Cebu alone the development of Ayala, SM, Robinsons, ang dami…We might go to neighboring (provinces) na lang (to get manpower),” Mr. Escalona said.
The company targets to begin operations for the Lapu-Lapu Leisure Mactan project in 2020. — Arra B. Francia
