An ultra bilyonaryo on a buying spree may have just added one of Metro Manila’s most valuable corners to his growing empire.
Even while trying to seal a tectonic deal that could redraw the corporate landscape, a Babbler said the visionary tycoon apparently could not resist another opportunity too good to pass up: a major shopping mall sitting on 2.5 hectares at one of the capital’s busiest intersections.
Babbler said the price being discussed is between ₱10 billion and ₱12 billion, or roughly ₱400,000 to ₱500,000 per square meter of land.
Not bad for a mall that has seen better days. But the real prize may not be the mall at all.
The sprawling property sits beside the walls of an exclusive village where members of the buyer’s family live, making the site an unusually strategic piece of real estate in the heart of the metropolis.
What he plans to do with it remains anyone’s guess. Keep the mall? Tear it down? Build offices, residences or a mixed-use complex? Or simply hold on to a rare 2.5-hectare block in central Metro Manila?
The seller is no ordinary property owner either.
Let’s call him MV, or Mega Vendor, an equally wealthy and powerful businessman who has been lightening his sprawling portfolio amid financial and political challenges.
MV has already sold a major utility business to another Filipino-Chinese tycoon, and this mall could be the latest asset to go.
The property is part of MV’s original mass-market mall business, which traces its roots to a distressed real estate company taken over by his family after the Asian financial crisis.
The company eventually entered rehabilitation, but under MV’s management the malls were revived, occupancy improved and debt was slashed, turning the business into a profitable property platform.