ALI Raises P13.6B For Expansion

Manila Bulletin  – Real estate giant Ayala Land, Inc. (ALI) has raised P13.6 billion, through the placement new ALI common shares, to fund its expansion program including land banking and the planned acquisition of a stake in the Ortigas family’s OCLP Holdings Inc.
The placement was conducted via an overnight bookbuilt offering structured as a top-up placement. This landmark transaction represents the largest overnight placement by a real estate company in Southeast Asia since 2005, as well as the largest ever overnight placement in the Philippines.

To implement the placement, parent company Ayala Corporation sold 680 million of its existing ALI common shares to qualified buyers and institutional investors at P20 per share, and ALI concurrently issued 680 million new primary shares to AC at the same price.

Following this transaction, Ayala’s stake in the voting stock of ALI will be marginally reduced from 73.07 percent to 71.22 percent and its ownership in ALI’s common stock will be reduced from 53.06 percent to 50.43 percent.

The transaction was initially launched as a top-up placement of 530 million shares at an indicative price range of P19.80 to P20.20 per share.

Due to strong demand and the fact that the offer was several times oversubscribed, the company decided to increase the offer size to 680 million shares.

“We are delighted with the investor community’s continued strong support of Ayala Land. This capital raise builds on the Company’s recent performance and positions us well to capture the attractive real estate growth opportunities we see throughout our country,” said ALI chairman Fernando Zobel de Ayala.
ALI will use the proceeds of the share placement primarily to fund its next phase of expansion, enabling it to sustain its high-growth trajectory.

In addition to its P37-billion capital expenditure program for 2012, ALI has identified significant land banking opportunities amounting to about P36 billion over the next two to three years.

About P20 billion of this may be deployed in Makati City and other parts of Metro Manila and the balance in growth centers in Nuvali and other parts of Luzon and in the Visayas and Mindanao.

A portion of the proceeds is also expected to partially fund ALI’s potential strategic alliance with a group led by Ignacio R. Ortigas and resulting participation in OCLP Holdings, Inc., the parent company of Ortigas and Company Limited Partnership.

ALI has budgeted an initial investment of P15 billion for this alliance which is expected to provide ALI with access to about 55 hectares of prime properties in Metro Manila.

“We are on track toward achieving our ‘5-10-15’ plan by 2014.  This equity raise provides Ayala Land with expanded permanent capital to support our long term growth plans,” said ALI president Antonino T. Aquino.
Goldman Sachs (Singapore) Pte., J.P. Morgan and UBS Investment Bank acted as Joint Bookrunners and Placement Agents in connection with the Placement.  BPI Capital Corporation acted as Sole Domestic Coordinator and Bookrunner, and CLSA Limited Acted as Co-Manager.