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By Likha Miel-Cuevas, Reporter
The controversial police report saying a gas
build-up caused the Glorietta 2 explosion is not likely to rock the
stock price of Ayala Land Inc. (ALI), the country’s biggest
real-estate company.
That is the analysis of Jose Vistan of the stock
brokerage firm AB Capital. He added that the market has already
priced in the negative impact of the explosion right after the
incident in October 2007, when 11 persons were killed and more than
100 were injured.
The potential slip in Ayala Land stock price
also may have been mitigated by the rebound of the stock market on
Thursday. Performance was pulled up by gains posted by Wall Street
overnight, when the Dow Jones Industrial Average went up almost 150
points, analysts said.
The Philippine Stock Exchange composite index
closed 1.13 percent to 3,454.60 points higher, while Ayala Land’s
share price was stronger by P0.50 or 3.51 percent to P14.75,
compared to the previous day’s close.
Vistan said the market “expected” the
outcome of the police findings. The long-term effect of the lawsuits
against the Ayala company are yet to be seen, though, as the
“market would have to see the numbers” and how the lawsuits are
going to affect earnings, he added.
“But lightning doesn’t strike twice, and
[Ayala Land] would have to be more diligent in the [maintenance] of
its properties,” Vistan said. “Ayala’s name has been positive
for so many years, and one incident may not be able to change
that.”
Jaime Ysmael, Ayala Land chief finance officer,
earlier said the company is prepared to face the police findings. He
added that the company has conducted its own study of the explosion
and will come out with the results of its own investigation.
He said preliminary results of their in-house
probe did not find anything that would lead investigators to
conclude that the blast was caused by a gas explosion or a faulty
sewerage system.
Last year, Ayala Land estimated the damage cost
at around P100 million. But the loss of revenues from the closure of
Glorietta 2 is expected to be minimal as that section of the mall
accounted for only 2 percent or P123 million of the total revenues
of the whole Ayala Center operations in 2006.
In a briefing last year, Jaime Ayala, Ayala Land
president, said earnings from Ayala Land’s mall business
represents only about 17 percent of its revenues.
Ysmael said Ayala Land management has the option
not to rebuild Glorietta 2 and may opt for other profitable uses for
that space, but he did not elaborate.
Initially, the company had planned to rebuild
Ayala Center, where Glorietta 2 is a part of, in three phases.
Glorietta 2’s reconstruction involved the
development of business process outsourcing buildings and hotels on
top of the existing malls in line with its plan to transform it into
a mixed-use property.
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