Megaworld commits £55bn in capital expenditures for 2023.

Megaworld Corp., the real estate development arm of businessman Andrew Tan, said it is setting aside about 55 billion pesos for capital spending this year, up about 19 percent from the previous year’s 46 billion pesos.

The company is also targeting reservation sales of around 130 billion pesos this year, up 9 percent from last year’s figure of 118.9 billion pounds. It will launch projects worth about 60 billion pesos this year, up 33 percent from the previous year.

“Property revenue is expected to continue to rise on the back of increased construction activity,” the company said, adding that office space rents are expected to be stable and rent increases will continue despite challenges.

“Rent at the mall is expected to exceed provisional revenue amid a pandemic of higher occupancy and full collection of rent,” it said in a statement. “Expect hotel growth to continue in line with the improved outlook for leisure and MICE. [meetings, incentives, conferences and exhibitions] activity.”

The company said it has plans to build 207,200 square meters of gross leasable area (GLA) office buildings, which it expects to complete between this year and 2026.

These buildings are in Bacolod, Taguiga, Iloilo and San Fernando in Pampanga.

For the construction of the mall pipeline, the company has 159,500 square meters of GLA, which it hopes to complete between now and 2026. They are found in Antipolo, Davao, Taguiga, Boracay, Pampanga, Cavite, Cainta and Bacolod.

In addition, about 3,159 room keys will be completed from this year to 2028. These are Chancellor Hotel Boracay, Grand Westside Hotel in Paranaca, Belmont Hotel Iloilo, Kingsford Hotel Bacolod and Savoy Hotel Palawan.

Megaworld’s revenue reached 15.4 billion pesos last year, up 7% from 14.4 billion pesos in 2021, driven by double-digit revenue growth across all business segments.

Revenues grew at a faster rate of 17 percent to 59.52 billion pesos compared to 50.75 billion pesos the previous year.

In the fourth quarter alone, its profit fell 1 percent to 5.7 billion pesos from 5.8 billion pesos the previous year, while revenue rose 23 percent to 17.1 billion pesos from the previous year’s 13.9 billion.

Home sales for the full year rose 18 percent to 36.84 billion pesos from a previous figure of 31.12 billion pesos, with a 34 percent increase in the last quarter of the year.

Home pre-sales rose 49 percent to nearly 119 billion pesos in 2022, beating the company’s target of 110 billion pesos.

“Last year we exceeded our targets across all business segments and we remain optimistic that this year we will be able to meet or even exceed our pre-pandemic performance,” said Kevin Andrew L. Tan, Executive Vice President and chief strategy officer for the company.

“Of course, we will be launching more townships this year as we look forward to expanding our offerings to more cities in the Philippines.”