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By Likha C. Cuevas-Miel, Reporter
The real-estate arm of the Lopez group will push
back its maiden share offering to late 2008 to wait for the volatile
market to settle down and avoid competing with other companies
planning their own listing debuts in early half of next year.
Elpidio L. Ibañez, First Philippine Holdings
Corp. president and chief operating officer, said if the market
“has not recovered” from the effects of the global credit
squeeze and economic slowdown in the United States, then Rockwell
Land may have to delay its initial public offering.
He said the Rockwell Land Corp. may tap the
equities market during the latter part of next year as the company
is already “ripe” to go public. FPHC owns 24.5 percent of
Rockwell Land, while Meralco holds about 51 percent.
“There is no real emergency [to raise
capital], but if the timing is good then we may push on with it,”
Ibañez said. “[However] there are many issues lined up [for the
first quarter] and the market may get saturated again,” he added.
The FPHC executive Rockwell Land with an
estimated book value of P4.5 billion initially planned to go public
during the first quarter of 2008 to allow another Lopez-led holding
company, Benpres Holdings Corp., to divest its assets and retirement
debts worth $400 million. Benpres owns 24.5 percent of Rockwell
Land, and the holding firm may sell its entire stake in the company.
Early this year, the Lopez group announced it
would tap CLSA, investment banking and private equity group to serve
as underwriter for the planned IPO.
Part of the proceeds of the maiden share
offering would go to the development of the 5-hectare old General
Milling property along C5 in Pasig City that Rockwell Land has
acquired. Ibañez said the real-estate firm plans to build high-rise
residential condominiums with a small commercial component. Rockwell
Land may also opt to develop office buildings to accommodate the
business process outsourcing process component of its majority
shareholder Meralco.
The company’s flagship development project is
the prime 15-hectare self-contained Rockwell Center adjacent to the
Makati central business district and the site of the former power
plant named after James Chapman Rockwell, Meralco’s first
president.
Rockwell center has several high-rise
residential condominium projects, a sports & leisure club, a
lifestyle shopping center PowerPlant mall, and the corporate
headquarters of Nestle and Phinma Corp. and the Ateneo Graduate
School.
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