22 Jun 2014  — PROPERTY firm SM Prime Holdings Inc. (SMPHI) has drawn down as much as $100 million from its planned $300-million debt facility that will be used to fund the expansion of its operations in China.

SMPHI Chief Financial Officer Jeffrey C. Lim said the firm has raised an initial $50 million to $100 million from its dollar-denominated fund- raising efforts.

“But we have not yet drawn all the $300 million. There is an ‘availment’ period of six months to one year,” he explained, noting that the syndicated loan facility was completed last month.

“We have the entire year to actually draw the facility,” he added. The firm expects to raise the entire $300 million by the end of the year, proceeds of which will be used for the expansion of the group’s operations in China.

“We’re still doing Tianjin, and we bought a property in Yangzhou so we have to start planning,” Lim explained.

Tianjin Mall is touted to become the world’s largest mall and is expected to be opened next year. Tianjin is a metropolis in northern China and one of the five national central cities of the People’s Republic of China.

Meanwhile, the construction of the mall in Yangzhou will start by 2015. It will open a year after, according to Lim.

The firm is also in the midst of documentation for the planned sale of its P20-billion retail bonds, which will be used to further expand SMPHI’s chains of malls, residential condominiums and office spaces, according to documents provided by the company. SMPHI unveiled its five-year plan in April that is expected to double both the firm’s revenues and net income by 2018 through aggressive expansion, primarily by putting up more shopping malls and launching residential developments. Its revenues are expected to reach some P119.6 billion and net income to P32.6 billion by 2018. It will spend some P400 billion during that five-year period. The Sy-led firm will start its five-year plan this year and is targeting to open at least three new malls in the country with a total gross floor area of about 280,000 square meters (sq m) to bring its total for the year at 7.5 million sq m.

It will also start the construction of its three new condominium projects, with a total of 7,000 units during the second half of the year. The company is also putting up a convention center in Bacolod and a businessman’s hotel under the Park Inn brand in Clarkfield in Pampanga by the end of the year. According to its plan, by 2018, SMPHI would have a total of 85 malls, 11 of which will be in China. This translates to a total gross floor area of about 11 million sq m from the current 7 million sq m. SM currently has a total of 53 malls, 48 in the country and the rest in China.