AYALA Land, Inc. (ALI) will not expand its land bank — the total land it owns or controls for future development — but will concentrate on maximizing the utilization of its existing properties, a company official said.
“We’ve made a deliberate decision not to acquire additional land unless it’s a very special parcel, and we know where those parcels are, but they’re not yet up for sale,” ALI Chief Finance Officer Augusto D. Bengzon said in a media briefing last week.
Mr. Bengzon said that ALI had 11,300 hectares of land bank as of the end of 2023.
“We do think that we will be utilizing around 800 hectares a year, so over the next five years, that’s about 4,000 hectares,” he said.
During the same briefing, ALI President and Chief Executive Officer Anna Ma. Margarita Bautista-Dy said the company will launch new districts within the company’s existing estates.
“We will be focusing not so much on the launching of new estates but on launching new districts within existing estates. We want to really use the land bank in our existing estates as opposed to keep launching new ones,” she said.
“We want to make sure that our estates really come to life. It helps if we focus our capital and efforts on making the most out of the estates that we have, and in the process, create more value in our existing estates,” she added.
Ms. Dy said that ALI has earmarked P7 billion in capital expenditure (capex) budget over the next two to three years for the reinvention of its leisure and hospitality business.
ALI Head of Leasing and Hospitality Mariana Zobel de Ayala said that 900 hotel rooms are under construction in support of the company’s target to build 4,000 new rooms over the next five years.
“What’s particularly exciting is we’re hopeful about growth in international travel. I think there’s a projection that foreign arrivals will double in the next few years. We are going to be rolling out a number of new products targeted at that foreign travel,” she said.
Mr. Bengzon also noted that ALI’s planned capital expenditure of P100 billion for this year is approaching its pre-pandemic level of P108 billion.
“We’re almost there. Pre-pandemic, we peaked at about P108 billion in capex spending. In terms of the activity on the ground, I think by many metrics, we’ve exceeded pre-pandemic levels. Construction activity-wise, I guess that will follow our launches, as well as the leasing pipeline that we’ve set out for ourselves,” he said.
Meanwhile, Ms. Dy said the growth of the company’s residential business will come from the premium segment.
“There will be continuous demand from the premium segment. The onus is on us to come up with products that will really cater to the requirements of that segment and will be able to compete and offer something different from other competitors,” she said.
For the first half, ALI saw a 15% increase in its net income to P13.1 billion as consolidated revenue rose by 28% to P84.3 billion.
ALI shares were last traded on August 9 at P30 per share. — Revin Mikhael D. Ochave
